Virtual Christmas Celebration - Nirmiti Academy – Dec 2020

If the past few months or year 2020 have taught us anything, it’s that nothing is like it used to be! Particularly the festive celebration. Just like all other facets of our life, we are coming up with unique and innovate ways to celebrate festivals in the last month of 2020.

While it may be our first ever year of planning virtual celebrations, that should not stop us from adapting to the current condition and starting new traditions. With schools, colleges and offices shut due to the pandemic, celebrations have shifted online, with all kinds of programs - ranging from cultural performances to debates being planned virtually.

Nirmiti Academy celebrated its second virtual party – virtual Christmas party this year. Nirmiti Academy has always considered it important to reinforce the feeling of harmony and kindness during these festive occasions (and tough times like COVID-19).

The main objective of celebrating Christmas virtually this year has been to implant the values of communication, kindness and creative thinking in the participants. As Nirmiti Academy created this online platform to bring participants from different batches together, the most effective and valuable skill of communication got them to interact with each other.

We kick started the celebration with our active and super excited batches of Public Speaking. As the celebration began, each one of them tried to introduce themselves in a unique and fun way - Spin the Wheel game. The students thoroughly enjoyed this style of introductions. Like we say, celebrations, activities and games do teach us something or the other, Nirmiti Academy thought of utilizing this time to teach something new through this celebration.

We kickstarted our fun learning with a Debate competition. This was a competition for all the students of Public Speaking Batch and the topics revolved around Christmas festival. The students got to know how to interact with new faces, organize and express their thoughts and understand do’s and don’ts of a debate.

The celebration continued with the next batches of participants from our Spoken English program. Our kids from Spoken English batches got their hands immersed in the most acclaimed and known activity – Write a Letter to Santa. The best part of their letters, were their wishes. It was so heartening to see these little kids writing to Santa about COVID-19. They all had one wish in common – please free all the countries from Coronavirus. It was with great joy and happiness that every participant displayed the best of their creativity skills in making the letters.

Our students from Online Personality Development batch also contributed to the goodness of celebrating Christmas virtually. Each of them dressed the part – in white, green and red theme. They also enjoyed playing Spin the Wheel activity with a twist! Getting conversational and small talk abilities were emphasised as well as ended the celebration with their Goal Setting exercise.

One could not miss the Christmas decoration with the red, green and white color theme that all the students put in together. Twinkling Christmas decorations found their way in every nook and corner of the Zoom windows. Dressed up in their best outfit, the happy faces of the participants brought a real joy into the celebration.

As we try to emerge successfully from COVID-19 setback, connecting together and celebrating festivals with our near and dear ones is critical. This delightful time spent with these super talented and super excited participants across the globe has allowed us to reflect on more than just our celebration.

Coming together, even remotely or virtually in more intimate groups, allows us to get involved in activities pertinent to our shared vision. Taking part in celebrations, boosts our sense of shared identity, connection, and eventually wellbeing.