Tag Archives: karaoke

Fun Christmas Party Surprises To Wow Your Guests

December 20, 2024 The Silo Leave a comment

Whether you’re hosting a family Christmas dinner or are planning the office holiday party, your goal is the same: to make it a gathering your guests will always remember. Fun, unexpected surprises are an easy way to delight your co-workers, friends and loved ones. From keepsakes to party themes to the menu, there are plenty of opportunities to get creative and serve up something your guests haven’t experienced at a Christmas party before. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Keepsakes that Keep on Giving

Hosts of a holiday party aren’t usually expected to give their guests gifts, which is one way to surprise partygoers. Ideally, a gift the recipient can use over and over again will remind them of the good times they had at your party. Custom-printed hoodies, sweaters or long-sleeve shirts definitely fit that bill. Once you find a company that offers screen printing in Ottawa for small and large orders alike, you can think up a funny saying, exercise your drawing skills, use digital images or simply commemorate the event with your family or company name. Your guests will have unique, comfy hoodies or sweaters to wear at the party and something to remember you by whenever it gets chilly for years to come.

Keep in mind, however, that regardless of what you gift your guests, it’s all in the presentation. A fun way to gift custom sweaters, or any other gift this holiday season, is in a personalized DIY gift bag. Making them can be a fun and creative activity for you and the kids to experience that involves them in the gifting-giving and helps them practice their crafting skills.

Fun Christmas Dinner/Party Themes & Activities

Here are a few non-traditional Holiday party themes and activities that you can use to add a little variety to your annual dinner or get-together.

Outdoor Christmas Party Activities

Yes, Ottawa winters can get painfully cold outside in the wind. But there are also plenty of sunny winter days that are perfect for ice skating, tobogganing, a bonfire or building snow castles using sand & snow castle-building kits. Just be sure to have backup activities planned in case the weather doesn’t cooperate on the day of your party.

Photo by Nikita Vinogradov via Pexels

Karaoke, Movie and/or Game Night Christmas Party

If frozen toes, fingers and noses would interfere with the joy of an outdoor Christmas party, or your brood is just not the outdoorsy type, you can combine your Christmas party with one of your favorite nights of the week (or month) – karaoke, game or movie night.

Unlike the impromptu sing-alongs, games of charades or traditional gatherings around the TV for a classic Christmas film, plan your holiday party as a night of full-on:

Board games. If your family and friends are board gamers, you already know that they’ve come a long way since the days of Scrabble, Monopoly, Snakes & Ladders, etc. They’re better than ever at teaching players of all ages critical thinking skills like logic, strategy and planning. Many newer games also incorporate teamwork, with players working together to beat the game itself. There are also numerous games based on popular movie franchises and stream-able series, which can make a board game an exciting pastime that ties into a Movie/TV-themed party.
Movie or Binge-TV Night Christmas Party. Films and TV shows provide an infinite number of themes to help you plan an outside-of-the-box Christmas dinner party. You can base your party on a tried-and-true family favorite, the latest global smash hit or a movie or TV show that fits a pre-determined theme.
Karaoke Competition Christmas. If you have a family filled with aspiring pop stars or better-than-average shower soloists, you can plan a karaoke party of Christmas/holiday songs or curate a playlist based on the theme of your party. You can really spice things up by making it a competition with plenty of prizes for all the participants.

Christmas Pageant Dinner and a Show

If your party will have a significant number of kids (of any age) who like to put on a show, consider sending out scripts, holding rehearsals, and turning your home or party room into a dinner theatre. Costumes can be readily thrifted or thrown together, and if you really want to go all out, backgrounds and curtain frames can be assembled easily enough by enthusiastic DIYers. Don’t forget to have a proper video camera set up on a tripod so you’ll always have the recording to enjoy with (and at the expense of) the cast.

Alternate Holiday Dinner Menu Items

Your holiday dinner menu can be influenced by your party theme, it can be based on modern takes of classic Christmas dishes, or you can simply add random non-traditional dishes like the ones below.

Holiday Taco Night

Taco night is generally a fan favorite, so why not give the people what they want? You might have to use burrito shells depending on your meat of choice, but don’t be afraid to get creative and consider the following options:

Fish. Fish tacos are a popular choice taco choice, but when was the last time you had fish tacos at a Christmas party? Also, you can use fish sticks if you’re looking for a convenient, easy-to-prepare meat filling.
Steak or ribs. Try braising or marinating them in pomegranate juice with a hint of cinnamon and/or chile pepper to spice things up a little. As an added bonus, both pomegranate and cinnamon are recommended to strengthen your immune system and help you fight off colds and flus.
Turkey. The line between a taco and a wrap can get a little blurry here, but whatever you call them, using traditional turkey accompaniments, corn, cranberries, potatoes, gravy, mac & cheese, etc., make delicious toppings.

Christmas Jambalaya

Not much can hit the spot as well as a hearty helping of jambalaya can on a cold holiday dinner night. Really, the only rules to a jambalaya are that your ingredients taste good with Cajun spices and that it’s all cooked together. Whether you go with Christmas dinner ingredients, New Orleans-inspired flavors or some type of fusion, a big pot can satisfy a lot of people.

Homemade Holiday Donuts

Puddings, pies, cakes and cupcakes are understandable go-to choices for Christmas dinner desserts, but homemade donuts with a holiday twist can ignite some excited chatter when they make their way to the dessert table. Feeling overly patriotic? Try maple glazed donuts topped with candied bacon crumble for a taste that’s both distinctly holiday and Canadian.

For the Silo, Jeg Duaso. Featured image: by Nicole Michalou via Pexels

Culture

Fun Late Night Activities To Do after the Bars Close

November 29, 2022 The Silo Leave a comment

Drinking with friends until late at night is fun, which is why lots of people do it especially on weekends. You get to talk with friends about your romantic problems and work issues, or you may enjoy watching live games in sports bar with other fervent fans. But what can you do after the bars close? Many take things easy and wind down with one of the excellent erotic massages in Montreal. That seems like the perfect way to end a fun night.

However, there are other ways to continue having fun even when the bars all seem closed late at night. Discuss matters with your friends, and see if any of these suggestions suit their fancy:

Drink Coffee

Haven’t you noticed how many of these specialty coffee shops are open 24 hours? That’s because they know that when people are done drinking but they don’t want to go home yet, they get coffee to continue their story-swapping activities.

Coffee is perfect for those who have been drinking, since it can keep people from just sleeping. Your friends will hate you if they have to drag your sleeping body home. So drink some coffee, and afterwards hire a cab back to your place. Just don’t drive! You may be awake, but you’re still drunk!

Eat Something

Lots of people experience the “munchies” when they’ve been drinking. So once the drinking is done, it may be time to continue the night with some fast food treat like a nice juicy burger or some hot pizza. You may also want to try shawarma.

Scientific studies have confirmed that alcohol can really make you feel hungry. It’s been found that alcohol fires up a type of brain cell that’s also active when you’re starving. So when you drink, your brain thinks you haven’t eaten for a long while.

Play Video Games

In some cities like Montreal, you may find arcade places where you can play various video games even at 3:00 AM. You can play Tekken and other fighting games if you’re one of those inclined to violence after a bit of drinking—at least this time, no one gets really hurt!

You can also try any of the racing games, and you may find out why it’s a bad idea to drink and drive. Of course, even if you do well in these games it doesn’t mean you’re ready to drive home for real.

Sing Some Karaoke

You may be a shy wallflower type when you’re sober, but you may be a performer yearning to break free once you’ve imbibed enough alcohol. You’re not alone, so why not join other would-be singers and have some fun belting out your favorite tunes?

The nice thing about being drunk is that it makes you brave enough to try this, and you’re also drunk enough to think you’ve done justice to that Bon Jovi song you’ve always liked. Most people in these places are non-judgmental, so even if you’re off-key they won’t mind. Not that you’d know you were off-key…

Go Bowling

Bowling is another activity that somehow seems a lot more fun when you’ve been drinking. It also shows you exactly how drunk you are—if your bowling ball can’t hit any of the pins every time, then it may be time to call it a night. Bowling is something you can do if the bar you went to closed early at 1AM or so, as some bowling places may close at 3AM.

Try Your Luck at a Casino

You better believe that if you’re a well-behaved drunk, the casino will love you. You get to enjoy yourself playing blackjack, while the casino plies you with drinks as they happily take your money! For the Silo, Dimitry Karloff.

Culture

Anti Arnaques Is First Website Created To Fight Russian Romance Scams

November 23, 2018 The Silo Leave a comment

There are nowadays millions of single men, and among those, many dream of meeting a woman from Eastern Europe. Indeed, these women are known to be extremely attractive, faithful, and ready to do anything to come to live in Europe. Many dating and marriage agencies have been created to cater for this niche, specializing in so-called international marriages.

Unfortunately, many scams are hidden among these agencies. The websites use the faces of superb young women as bait. Once the vulnerable bachelor is hooked by some carefully worded emails, he is asked for money to cover the cost of a plane ticket as well as the visa fee. The sums involved can go up to 1,500 or 2,000 €, depending on the naivety of the man, and there is generally no way to fight it legally.

Anti Arnaques, the First community dedicated to fight Eastern Europe romance scams

That’s why Anti-Arnaques was created, in order to provide a reliable verification platform to any man who has doubts about the sincerity of the person he is speaking to. It includes:

A unique identity verification system in 2 steps: the Express Background Verification, through the four major Russian social networks, and the Official Background Verification, through the public and private databases of Russian and Ukrainian citizens that are reserved to the official authorities.
A black list containing names and pictures of women known to have practiced scams.
Practical advice to identify risk scenarios.
A forum to exchange ideas on potential risky encounter situations.

Testimony of a scam victim

“Hello, I am Rui, I live in Portugal and I was a victim of a scheme. Nastya or Anastasiya Vorozhnina, living at Lomonosova 97-64, 428000 Novopokrovskoe Russia, deceived me. By mere chance, I only lost 200 €, as well as 24 photos. This scheme lasted about 5 months, but I always resisted to send the full amount of money she requested, which was around 800 € to start with.

I hope to my testimony will help someone, and prevent him to fall into such scheme. These women can be very sweet at the beginning: only after 2 or 3 months she started to ask money. She was an authentic professional, who already appears in your list with other names: if I had knew Antiarnaques.org back then, I would not have wasted so much time.”

Rui, 48 years old, scammed by A.V.

The website Antiarnaques.org (which means Antiscams in French) allows anyone who wants to date a Russian, Ukrainian or Slav women to check the identity of a specific woman. Antiarnaques.org also offers the possibility to check the reliability of any marriage agency, and to consult the black list of Russian women known for fraud.

About Dimitri Berezniakov, the creator of Anti Arnaques

Dimitri Berezniakov launched UKReine.com in 1998: it was the first dating site specializing in international marriages between men from France, Belgium, Switzerland and Canada, and Ukrainian women.

This allowed him have a ringside seat to witness the rise of Russian romance scams: he used to receive emails from men victims of these scams almost daily. Because of the magnitude of the problem, he decided to create Anti Arnaques in 2010, in order to offer a reliable solution to individuals wishing to verify the identity of Russian and Ukrainian women.

Supplemental- Top Social Networks in Russia.

Anti Arnaques, le premier site francophone de lutte contre les escroqueries sur le marché de la rencontre russe

Le site Antiarnaques.org permet à tout individu souhaitant trouver l’amour auprès d’une femme russe, ukrainienne ou slave de vérifier l’identité d’une femme spécifique. Antiarnaques.org offre également la possibilité de vérifier le sérieux de l’agence matrimoniale choisie, et de consulter la liste noire de femmes russes connues pour escroquerie.

La rencontre de femmes russes, ukrainiennes et slaves : un marché florissant mais présentant de nombreux risques

On compte aujourd’hui dans l’Hexagone de 16 millions à 18 millions de célibataires, divorcés et veufs, ce qui représente un marché attractif et porteur (CIDJ.com). Et ce nombre ne cesse d’augmenter : le nombre de seniors et de divorcés étant en hausse, de plus en plus d’individus se retrouvent à chercher l’âme sœur.

Parmi ces millions de célibataires, de nombreux hommes rêvent de rencontrer une femme originaire d’Europe de l’Est. En effet, on leur promet des femmes fidèles au physique extrêmement attractif, prêtes à tout pour venir vivre en France. Une multitude d’agences matrimoniales s’est ainsi positionnée sur ce créneau, en se spécialisant dans les rencontres dites internationales.

Malheureusement, de nombreuses arnaques se cachent parmi ces agences. Les sites utilisent les visages de superbes jeunes femmes comme appât. Une fois le célibataire vulnérable hameçonné par quelques emails soigneusement rédigés, on lui demande de l’argent pour couvrir le montant d’un billet d’avion ainsi que les frais de visa. Les sommes en jeu peuvent monter jusqu’à 1 500 ou 2 000 € selon la naïveté de l’interlocuteur, et il n’existe en général aucun recours devant la justice.

Anti Arnaques, première communauté francophone luttant contre les arnaques sentimentales d’Europe de l’Est

C’est pour cela qu’a été créé Anti Arnaques, dont l’objectif est de fournir une plateforme de vérification fiable à tout homme ayant des doutes sur la sincérité de son interlocutrice. On y trouve ainsi :

Un système de vérification d’identité unique en deux temps : la Vérification Express, via des 4 principaux réseaux sociaux russes, et la Vérification Officielle, via les bases de données publiques et fermées des citoyennes russes et ukrainiennes qui sont réservées aux organismes officiels.
Une liste noire répertoriant les noms comme les visages des femmes connues pour avoir pratiquées des escroqueries.
Une liste noire des agences matrimoniales internationales connues pour pratiquer des escroqueries.
Des conseils pratiques et concrets pour identifier les scénarios à risque.
Un forum d’entraide pour échanger sur des situations de rencontres potentiellement à risques.

Ils ont été victimes d’arnaques et témoignent

« Tout a commencé par un mail, et des conversations dans lesquelles on parlait de tout et de rien. Je lui ai proposé de venir en France pour son anniversaire, et la cascade d’ennuis a débuté : pas d’argent pour payer le passeport, pas d’argent pour payer le visa…J’ai donc payé tous les frais. Une fois à l’aéroport, elle s’est soi-disant faiteî arrêter, on lui a interdit de quitter le pays à cause du crédit de son appartement. J’ai eu moult preuves de sa bonne foi, j’ai cru en elle, je me suis senti responsable, je me suis investi à fond. J’ai donné beaucoup beaucoup d’argent, et aujourd’hui j’ai tout perdu.
Je souhaite simplement que d’autres ne répètent pas les mêmes erreurs : je l’ai donc signalé sur Anti Arnaques, s’il vous plaît allez-voir, et faites attention ! »

Joël, 43 ans, arnaqué par E. T.

“J’ai commencé une relation par email avec Anastasiya, elle m’a complétement séduit en quelques semaines. Elle était extrêmement douce au début, puis a commencé à réclamer de l’argent. Par chance, j’ai flairé quelque chose de louche et ne lui ai envoyé que 200 €. J’ai ensuite réalisé qu’elle était présente sur la liste noire d’Anti Arnaques ! »
J’espère empêcher un autre homme de tomber dans le même piège ! »

Pierre, 48 ans, arnaqué par A. V.

A propos de Dimitri Berezniakov, le créateur du site Anti Arnaques

Dimitri Berezniakov a lancé UKReine.com en 1998 : il s’agissait alors du premier site de rencontres spécialisé dans les mariages internationaux entre des hommes originaires de France, de Belgique, de Suisse et du Canada, et des femmes ukrainiennes.

Cela lui a permis d’être aux premières loges pour assister à l’essor des arnaques sentimentales en provenance d’Europe de l’Est : il reçoit alors des emails provenant d’hommes victimes de ces escroqueries quasi-quotidiennement. Face à l’ampleur du problème, il décide de créer Anti Arnaques en 2010, afin d’offrir une solution fiable aux individus souhaitant vérifier l’identité de leurs interlocutrices.