It's almost time for that great celebration, Festibration!


Please use this thread to post ideas of events, games, contests, and other threads for this winter holiday! I'll be keeping track of what we're definitely going to do, as well as all of the great ideas!

Events and Activities
• Count-down Calendar (Diana and Mercury)
• Snowball madness (Uranus)
• Winter Character Dress Up contest (Neptune)
• Weekly games (Cosmos-Hime)
• Tarot readings (Addy)
• Tree decorating contest (or sharing) (CrystalBunny)
• Ugly sweater contest (Dark Sportsnutd)
• Snowflake design contest (or sharing) (Andalusite)
• Holiday mad libs (Andalusite)
• History thread (Sailor Gallifrey)
• Chain story game (Sailor Gallifrey)
• Gift exchange (Jupiter)
• Card exchange, mailed and digital (Mercury)
• Otaku senshi contest (Pluto)
• Holiday cheer awards (Mercury)
• Christmas cake decorating contest (or sharing) (Zoey900)
• Holiday recipe collection (Kai)
• "Twelve Days of Festibration" writing prompt challenge (dreamsinpink)
• Jigsaw puzzle (Celest)
• and more!

Notes
• Stagger events—some last for one week, some for two, etc.
• Make sure all events are inclusive—please don't make them specific to certain holidays or beliefs whenever possible
• Calendar-style "guide to Festibration" to keep deadlines for activities easy to access in one place

Suggestions and Ideas
• Snowflake design contest (or sharing)
• Christmas tree decorating contest (or sharing)
• Winter Character Dress Up contest (or sharing)
• Christmas cake decorating contest (or sharing)
• Ugly sweater contest
• "Space is Key" Christmas game highest score contest
• Pet sledding highest score contest
• Snowball Pinball highest score contest
• First Snow! highest score contest
• Christmas puzzle game
• "Secret exchange" gift swap (digital and/or mailed)
• "Twelve Days of Christmas" writing prompt challenge
• Artist contest (or perhaps an artist challenge?)
• Snowball fight or stealing or madness
• Chain story game
• Holiday mad libs
• Karaoke
• Video streaming
• Holiday card swap (digital and/or mailed)
• Collection of holiday recipes from members
• Share your favourite holiday foods
• Share your favourite holiday traditions
• Share your favourite holiday crafts
• Coming soon!

I'd like to hold a Snowflake designing contest (don't know if this has ever been suggested). I found this game where you can basically cut out paper to give the snowflake a shape. 

Zoey900 wrote:

I'd like to hold a Snowflake designing contest (don't know if this has ever been suggested). I found this game where you can basically cut out paper to give the snowflake a shape. 

That game looks cute~ I think we could potentially use this as a contest or just as a "share what you've made" kind of like the pumpkins. Thanks for the suggestion!

I would like to hold a Christmas Tree Decorating Contest because I found this game .

I already found a flash game, here. All you use is the spacebar to move. Considering I haven't beaten it yet, it could be a "who gets the farthest" or "who has the highest score" sorta thing.

CrystalBunny wrote:

I would like to hold a Christmas Tree Decorating Contest because I found this game .

Thanks! I've added this to the list of ideas~!

Cosmos-Hime wrote:

I already found a flash game, here. All you use is the spacebar to move. Considering I haven't beaten it yet, it could be a "who gets the farthest" or "who has the highest score" sorta thing.

This game is really fun, at least from what I've seen so far. Maybe we can have "highest score" or perhaps we could have a more generic "game-playing and chit-chat" type of thread~

I'd really like to do a secret santa type gift exchange. It could be Lotus only or even Staff only to try to make sure that people actually send gifts, since I know that's been an issue in the past? I'm trying to brainstorm a way to hold people accountable to actually sending gifts...

^We could have it be digital gifts only, if buying and sending gifts becomes too much of an issue.

Cosmos-Hime wrote:

^We could have it be digital gifts only, if buying and sending gifts becomes too much of an issue.

Last year involved only digital gifts, if I recall correctly, but there were still issues of people not providing their recipient with gifts.

Sailor Mercury wrote:

Cosmos-Hime wrote:

^We could have it be digital gifts only, if buying and sending gifts becomes too much of an issue.

Last year involved only digital gifts, if I recall correctly, but there were still issues of people not providing their recipient with gifts.

It could involve sprites and points ?

CrystalBunny wrote:

It could involve sprites and points ?

The goal of a gift exchange like this would be to make something for someone else, like a signature or avatar based on their likes and dislikes. (: So just giving them a sprite or some points wouldn't quite help, but maybe we can find a way to use points to encourage people to do what they've committed to.

Other ideas from me re: gift exchange, a deadline 1 week or more in advance of gift exchanging, where everyone has to show the organizer that their gifts are ready. Anyone whose gift is not ready gets a shamity shame and someone else makes a gift for their recipient.

Sailor Mercury wrote:

Cosmos-Hime wrote:

^We could have it be digital gifts only, if buying and sending gifts becomes too much of an issue.

Last year involved only digital gifts, if I recall correctly, but there were still issues of people not providing their recipient with gifts.

Ah, sorry about that. I wasn't able to participate in the gift exchange last year, so I didn't know.

I just wanted to point out that mailing isn't the only thing that seems to prevent people from sending gifts. (: And gift exchanges are only fun when the gifts in question are received. It's always a morale-killer when some are giftless.

Even when you have volunteers who offer to pick up the slack and make emergency gifts, it's still disappointing to know that someone else didn't follow through.

I like the idea of a gift exchange with signatures and avatars. Even if that isn't a Festibration-sanctioned thing, maybe we could still do it?

Maybe hosting a thread for favorite holiday foods and crafts?

If possible, I'd like to do something like a Twelve Days of Christmas writing prompt challenge, where people can participate with as many (or as few) stories as they'd like (or can).

While no one wants to hear me sing, Christmas / Holiday Karaoke might be fun, and maybe a stream (or two?) of some holiday movies?

Maybe we could also arrange a holiday card swap? To make it more accessible, we could give participants the option of sending a real card or a digital card?

Edit: Sorry, I just thought of another idea!
I think we did this before, but we could do a holiday recipe collection. I'd be up for collecting recipes from members, and then putting them into a nice .PDF that we could offer in the advent calendar?

Dreams, a holiday card swap sounds so cute!!!

I love our gift exchanges! But, not the digital ones, because I can't participate in those. I was disappointed last year when we didn't have a phtsical mailing exchange. ):

How long is festibration going to be this year? Is it going to be all month like last year, or only the last two weeks of December/beginning of January?

Thanks for the suggestions so far~! We'll definitely want to have some "sharing/discussion" threads, so foods and crafts are great! I've also added "traditions".

A writing prompt challenge sounds nice! Perhaps we can also do the "build a story" game where everyone posts a sentence.

Karaoke and/or movie-watching are nice if we have someone to host it.

A holiday recipe collection sounds very cute! If we do something like that we'll want to start gathering recipes as soon as possible... it's hard for me to guess how much participation there will be. Having too few recipes will make the "collection" look very lonely, but having too many will make it difficult to put together. I'm kind of waffling on whether that would be more suited for the advent calendar or would be better as something people are encouraged to share.

Your interest in the mailing swap has been noted Luna~ It's just going to depend on how time-consuming that kind of thing is to oversee. (:

Festibration will be all month long. The advent calendar is two weeks.

So i can think of things to include, JUST for clarification this is basically wintery/holiday season sorts of things, correct?

I want to do an artist contest   because yes~~~~ but it will be a short one, doing a monthly artist contest in the holidays will make people forget about it D:

Eternal Eternity wrote:

So i can think of things to include, JUST for clarification this is basically wintery/holiday season sorts of things, correct?

Yes—winter and holidays (Christmas, New Year's, etc.) are the inspiration for Festibration!

Sailor Venus wrote:

I want to do an artist contest   because yes~~~~ but it will be a short one, doing a monthly artist contest in the holidays will make people forget about it D:

I think an art contest sounds fun~!

Didn't we have a virtual "snowball fight" one year? I think I remember that being fun~ (I found this thread for "snowball steal", which looks amazing. And this one on an actual "snowball fight".)

Also this: http://www.thegalaxycauldronforums.com/t12188-on-the-first-day-of-winter-my-forum-gave-to-me

Kyra usually runs all the snowball things xD

I was thinking about running a Winter-themed character dress up game since those are usually really popular. I'm thinking of using this one: http://www.rinmarugames.com/playgame.php?game_link=mega-winter-fashion-dress-up-game

Edit: This cake decorating game also seems fun! http://www.girlgames.com/christmas-cake-decoration.html

What about, something a bit similar to the World Fair, but in a thread? Christmas traditions in each member's region?

Sailor Neptune wrote:

Also this: http://www.thegalaxycauldronforums.com/t12188-on-the-first-day-of-winter-my-forum-gave-to-me

Kyra usually runs all the snowball things xD

I was thinking about running a Winter-themed character dress up game since those are usually really popular. I'm thinking of using this one: http://www.rinmarugames.com/playgame.php?game_link=mega-winter-fashion-dress-up-game

Edit: This cake decorating game also seems fun! http://www.girlgames.com/christmas-cake-decoration.html

Oh, those are cute! We'll definitely have to have a few of these dress-up style contests. (: Is it possible to have too many? And maybe we'll want to stagger them so they don't all occur at the same time?

Eidolune wrote:

What about, something a bit similar to the World Fair, but in a thread? Christmas traditions in each member's region?

There is an idea on the list for a thread to let people share their traditions. If we wanted to do something a bit more in-depth, I think it would be nice to see if anyone is interested in writing up some history/etc. type information about something they really want to share. Maybe we could collect several of those more "formal" write-ups in one thread.

Yes, since the celebration will be a month long, we definitely should stagger the similar contest types.

Also, I'm only committing to running the dress-up one at the moment, so if anyone doesn't have any idea for a contest of their own and wants to snag the cake decorating one that I linked, feel free to! ^^

I'd be happy to do another history-type thread about winter celebrations around the world! It might be cool to have members submit a paragraph or two about their holidays/traditions and then I could go more in-depth with the history aspect.

I probably can only help with games and things since I'm not good at the santa graphics..(I could cosplay as him lol I'm big enough)


ALSO BEST UGLY CHRISTMAS SWEATER CONTEST

I've found another flash game! Pet sledding!

Does it sound like a good idea if I do a game every week?