Character Roles for Christmas Day

Greetings Chief!

Your Christmas Day dinner party guests will be thrilled to help you enjoy your own party. In this part of the Gremlin Prevention Plan you get to assign roles and tasks to your guests. Should they choose to accept, and play with you, everyone will relax, enjoy and have fun this Christmas Day.

Give your guests plenty of advanced notice! It may take them time to digest your new style of entertaining, and their new style of being a guest.

Some guests arrive at a dinner party expecting to be entertained and served a delicious meal. Not because they don't want to participate in the preparations, but because the hostess graciously offers that kind of hospitality. Most guests love to help, especially if they clearly know what you want them to do.

Remember, if you want different results, you must change the way you do things, and the way you think.

This Christmas Day is your debut performance of a different way of doing Christmas. You are giving up the need to be a hero in the interest of letting go and enjoying yourself.

Be as creative as you like. Adopt the roles defined below, or feel free to change the theme. If the role of Queen/King for the Day is not your cup of tea, then go ahead and create your own character role and title -as long as you get to relax and have fun at your own party.

Can't decide which roles to assign to your guests? Add a little more spice to this drama - invite them to draw their own character role from a hat (kind of like one of those Murder Mystery Parties). Or give each role a number and ask them to pick a number while you are on the phone with them. Don't forget to include complete responsibilities for each role in their invitations to the party.

Character Roles and Tasks

Click here to download PDF version of Character Roles and Tasks Form

Chief
As the expert in this Gremlin Prevention Plan your role is to play the lead role. In this role you will hone your skills as an event planner.

By November, if you have read through the entire plan, acquired the skills to maintain your present moment conscious awareness for at least 80% of the time, aborted most of your gremlins from past Christmases, you will be in top shape to organize your big event.

Communicate clearly and frequently, if necessary, with all Helpers to make sure they are on board and organized to carry out their roles.

Even if you assign all tasks to others, you will silently oversee the entire play and be alert and ready to smooth ruffled feathers.

Remember, be patient with your guests/actors. They may not have the skills you have acquired from this plan.

They may not grasp the idea of stress management by meditation.

There are no gremlins more powerful than your inner stillness in each moment. Take nothing seriously.

Queen/King for the Day
Graduate of the role of Chief,giving up control to your Executive Assistant. During Christmas Day, relax, enjoy, and do whatever you wants to do. It's important to be free to handle surprise gremlins should they show up.

Executive Assistant to Chief
This character will be capable of maintaining a still, quiet and clear mind during crisis. The EA begins assisting the Chief two weeks or more before Christmas Day. She/he understands all aspects of the Gremlin Prevention Plan. Above all, she/he has the same intention and goals as the Chief - peace, joy, love and fun will reign throughout the whole day.

Kitchen Chief
In charge of food preparation by self and others, organizing the re-heating of certain dishes and serving. Supervises all kitchen Helpers. Lays out all utensils required for preparation.

Floating Helper
Steps up to the plate when and wherever their assistance is requested.

Helper - Turkey Carver
Preferably someone who is very good at carving. A Helper could lay out the sliced turkey on oven-safe platters.

Helper - Gravy Chef
The Gravy Chef prepares gravy from a recipe provided by the Chief. Or is encouraged to use his/her own recipe. Could be prepared ahead and re-heated, or Chief ensures that the required utensils and ingredients are available for pre-dinner preparation.

Helper – Candle Manager
Lights and maintains the candles throughout the house; lights the table candles just before guests sit down at the table; extinguishes table candles when guests have left the table.

Helper – Place cards
Places the name cards at their appropriate place settings on the Christmas table, as pre-determined by the Chief.

This Helper could be given full responsibility to provide and label the place cards prior to Christmas Day, then decide where to seat each guest.

Furniture Arranger
Set out the chairs and extra table(s).

Table Setter
If there are no other meals being served at the dining room table, insert the extensions and set it the day before with the table cloths, napkins, silverware, festive accessories.

Santa Claus
Hands out the gifts to guests.

Beverage Server
Set up the bar, complete with soft drinks, alcoholic beverages, water and ice. Locate the bar anywhere but the kitchen, or other areas of food preparation; serves the drinks and keeps them topped up for entire day and/or evening; only the beverage server is allowed access to the refrigerator in the kitchen.

If that sounds militant, it is meant to. Speaking as a hostess of many traditional family dinner parties, it is not easy to keep focused on the multi-tasking of getting perfectly cooked, delicious and hot food to the table. If people are milling about the kitchen and engaging us in conversation, Gremlins move in for the attack. With one's attention 100% focused on the task at hand fewer accidents can happen.

Supervisor of Children
Assign a willing adult or teenager guest to look after the children. If your young children will be present during your party let them know you have assigned someone to attend to their needs while you are busy with preparations. The job of the Children's Supervisor will be to keep the kids busy and out of the kitchen and prep areas.

Greeter
The honor of this position first goes to the Chief, unless the Chief chooses to be the Queen/King that day, relaxing, chatting with guests who are not on call. Of course, after the guests have been oriented to the theme of the day, then the Queen is available to welcome the new guest.

The next choice for a Greeter would be a willing spouse, or a teenage member of the family. In any case, someone must greet guests as they arrive to guide them to designated coat room, point out the location of bathrooms, and, if appropriate, to where children will be playing. Finally, inform the guests of their task(s) for the day.

Pet Sitter
A great role for an animal lover. Lets the animals in and out; ensures they are confined to one area of the house to prevent them from unexpectedly disturbing guests.

Recommendation: Post a schedule of assigned tasks where everyone can clearly see what role they are playing (not in the kitchen). Printed, laminated recipes can be tacked up in the kitchen for easy viewing by the Kitchen Chief and Helpers. Because they are laminated they will last for years.

I hope these ideas for character roles and tasks stimulates your creativity. You don't have to do it the way it is laid out here. Whatever way you do it, just do it differently than you did it last year, and relax take it easy, and have fun at your own Christmas Day dinner party.

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Glossary of Terms

To Successfully Aborted Gremlins