At least an aspect of your at-home party might be the collecting of gifts or food for others. Many organizations serve as distribution points for gifts to needy children in particular: Toys for Tots, churches, Girl Scout troops or councils, etc. At some Christmas concerts, food collection boxes serve in lieu of a ticket price. Want an activity to "cohere" the group? - wrap the gifts together. (If they’re not new, refurbish them together - many used toys and the like can be make to look like new with some cleaning or a new coat of paint.) Or make the gifts... or the food! Perhaps you’d even like to end the gathering by convoying them to their destination.

For instance, your "party" could be as simple as getting friends and family together to sort food at a local food bank; or as complex as having your group collect (in advance, or as a sort of scavenger hunt door-to-door?) items to take to a shelter (baby gear, bedding, food, school supplies, toothbrushes, soap and shampoo, etc.), where your arrival is the party - for everyone! (Or gather up gifts for those in a nursing home - calendars, sweat suits, puzzles, diabetic candy, personal care products, potpourri - and wrap them at your party.)

Children might enjoy a gift exchange whereby they "trade in" two (or three) of their in-good-shape-but-no-longer-enjoyed toys (or other objects of value) and take home one (or two). ...The other/s to be donated to a needy child as a Christmas gift.