Despite the cold, winter can be the coziest and prettiest season. It’s also a season connected to celebration and community. It’s the perfect season to encourage your community to build relationships through events to help them become closer. Here are some winter activities for HOA communities that everyone can enjoy.
Winter Activities for Your HOA Community
Looking to organize a winter event for the residents of your neighborhood? Here are some ideas you can try out.
1. Have a Cozy Winter Movie Night
Watching movies is always one family bonding activity most kids and adults like to do. You can expand this bonding activity for the winter with the entire HOA community.
For this, you can opt to use the clubhouse as the venue. Alternatively, if the weather permits, you can choose an open space in the neighborhood and have an outdoor movie night. At the venue, you can provide attendees warm blankets or bean bags to make it more comfortable.
When choosing a movie, try to find family-friendly but winter-themed classics to fit the atmosphere. For some extra touches, you can offer hot cocoa, popcorn, and other snacks.
2. Ice Skating Party
Does your HOA community have easy access to an ice skating rink or a nearby pond that freezes up during the winter months? If it does, why not host a skating event as one of your community’s winter activities?
To organize this, reserve a time slot from your local rink or create a temporary ice skating rink in your neighborhood’s common area.
At the event, your HOA can organize activities on the ice, including “Ice Tag” or skating lessons for beginners. You can also set up a comfort station, where you can offer a hot beverage like hot cocoa for residents.
3. Snow Sculpture or Snowman Contest
Playing in the snow and getting creative with it is one of the best winter activities around. As an exciting event for your community, you can take advantage of the snow and start a snowman or snow sculpture event.
As the organizing body, your HOA can set up some ground rules and criteria. You can see how the winners will be picked, whether by choosing judges or by community vote.
Additionally, you can develop themes for the families to work on. This should be in line with the winter season but is something that can let the participants’ creative juices flow freely.
4. Community Bonfire
There’s nothing like a cozy bonfire to bring the community together for a relaxing winter’s night out in the great outdoors.
When preparing for a community bonfire, one of your priorities should be the safety of both kids and adult residents. For this, you need to find a safe outdoor location without any potential fire risks. The said venue must have seating options, such as benches or logs, surrounding the bonfire at a safe distance
During the activity, you can organize storytelling, sing-alongs, small games, or casual chit-chat. And, of course, what’s a cozy bonfire without some snacks? Bring marshmallows, s’mores kits, and other snacks that are easy to eat!
5. Winter Markets
Support your local community vendors, whether they’re farmers, artisans, or crafters, by providing them with a venue to showcase their produce. For a winter activity, why not host a market day for your HOA community where residents can sell or shop?
For this, you can ask residents interested in offering their wares, such as handicrafts, artisanal goods, baked goods, or even winter produce. You can encourage your residents to try selling their homemade items from hobbies like candles or knitted or crocheted apparel.
For this HOA winter activity, you must find an open common area, such as the clubhouse or a park, with tables and areas for vendors to set up. You can decorate your winter market by adding holiday decor and lights and playing music.
The winter market doesn’t have to end with the buying and selling of goods. The HOA can make things more festive by adding side activities and entertainment to keep attendees interested. Tap community members who might be into music to provide live entertainment. You can also organize side activities, such as small games, for kids to enjoy.
6. Charitable Winter Activities
It’s always a good thing to give back to people in need. A great HOA winter activity you can organize is a charity drive or volunteer event. Not only will such a community event be a chance to give others, it’s also an opportunity to teach younger members of the community the value of helping others.
There are numerous charity events that you can organize as a HOA. Some of them may include coat drives, which is especially important during the winter months. You may also try out organizing food bank donations or toy collection drives.
If you want to give back through volunteerism, planning a group day at your nearest shelter or charity organization is a great option.
7. Themed Potluck Dinner
Wintertime is also usually connected to celebration. After all, it’s when many holidays are celebrated and associated with. Sometimes, a simple get-together is enough to encourage and build relationships among residents in a community.
One way to do this is by organizing a potluck dinner that families can contribute to. This brings residents together while showcasing their families’ culinary tradition through the food that they’ll bring.
When organizing such a gathering, you can make things more interesting by adding a theme to the food. You can ask for winter comfort foods or traditional dishes from the various cultures each family may come from.
Apart from that, you must also figure out some of the logistics. To ensure that there will be no duplicate dishes, you can ask residents to sign up.
Strengthening Bonds With Winter Activities
In any community, having great relationships among neighbors is crucial for it to run well. One way to ensure this and strengthen their bonds is through activities that help residents socialize and get to know each other more. Cozy events like these winter activities for HOA communities can be a powerful tool to reinforce your neighborhood’s sense of community.
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