Want to host the best Christmas party ever? Use these tips and tricks to make your Christmas party this year the one that everyone is talking about from now until next year’s party! Plus, a free printable Christmas carol game that everyone will love!
Tips for Hosting the Best Christmas Party Ever
I absolutely love Christmas because of all of the holiday parties! Ugly sweater parties, white elephant gift exchanges, gingerbread house parties, cookie exchanges, reindeer games, and the list goes on and on!
I’ve hosted quite a few Christmas parties over the past few years between living by all of my family and being the classroom mom for my sons’ classes, and I’ve learned a lot doing so. Today instead of giving you a specific Christmas party idea, I’m sharing my tips and tricks to host the best Christmas party ever!
Doesn’t matter what the theme is or who’s coming to the party, these holiday entertaining tips are sure to make your party the one people are still talking about on Christmas morning!
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#1 – Choose Your Party Time Wisely
You definitely need to have enough Christmas party food for everyone coming, but don’t feel the need to serve six million different things.
For our last party, we just did a couple of easy Christmas appetizers like baked brie, desserts like gingerbread cookies, and drinks (hello Christmas punch) for everyone.
The key is to be selective about the time of the party AND to make it clear on the invitation whether you’re serving a full meal or not. Here’s a good rule of thumb for party times and meals.
- 10AM or earlier start time should serve enough food to count as breakfast or brunch. Serve things like breakfast casseroles and egg muffins.
- 11AM-1PM serve enough food to count as lunch
- 5PM-7PM should serve enough food to count as dinner
- Any time outside of those windows you can just serve snacks, appetizers, or desserts.
Be smart about it, and you should be able to get away with just serving finger food and not a full meal. And I’m always a fan of having Christmas candy out for people to grab, for some reason people who don’t normally love treats will eat all the candy at a Christmas party!
#2 – Make fancy Drinks for everyone
Keep everyone in mind – kids, adults, pregnant women, and people want something fancy without it being just for adults.
Make a Christmas punch or homemade wassail or a homemade hot chocolate along with anything else you want to serve to drink. A fun Christmas drink really takes the food and drinks up a notch!
You could even setup an entire hot chocolate bar in one part of the room to go along with the trend of interactive food stations!
#3 – Make your favorites even if they’re not holiday recipes
Nobody said that every dish on a Christmas party table has to be a holiday recipe.
One of our most popular New Year’s Eve parties was filled with people’s favorite foods and guess what – all of the food was gone by the end of the night. I made striped delight with holiday sprinkles – not typically a Christmas dessert, but it was a hit!
Don’t serve holiday items just because they fit the holiday, serve whatever you love and whatever you think the most people will enjoy. Keep the table Christmas focused by adding in colors, patterns, and even jars full of candy that do fit the holiday theme.
For example, I simply added fresh basil leaves and Christmas themed napkins under the pizza loaf + ranch dip combination, and voila, it fit the table even though pizza loaf is definitely not what you would call a traditional holiday appetizer.
Do more mixing and matching – serve one favorite and one holiday special like these ever popular Christmas sugar cookies!
#4 – Plan Christmas Games based on your guests
If there’s anything I’ve learned from having this gift exchange game post be super popular this year and our Instagram page rocking with people excited about Christmas games, it’s that people like their Christmas party games!
One of my biggest tips for parties is to not make people play crazy games that don’t like to play games. There are games of all sorts on our site – pick what makes the most sense for the people coming and your situation.
So for instance, if you know the group really well and think they’d be up for it, try these candy cane games! But if your group is more of a sit and play games kind of group, try something more like this Christmas trivia game or Christmas bingo.
If you want do a gift exchange but are worried about people’s feelings getting hurt, try this heads or tails gift exchange or left right game that leaves the decisions up to luck! And if you’re not and want all the stealing, try this scrooge your neighbor gift exchange!
#5 – Use your five senses when planning details
I read an article once about using your five senses when you’re planning a party, and this is especially true for Christmas. I like to come up with a theme then start planning details based on my five senses. These are just some guidelines to get you started!
1 – Hear – Pick the perfect Christmas playlist full of traditional and more modern Christmas songs.
2- Smell – Make fresh wassail or this mulled apple cider that just smells like Christmas, use fresh pine or rosemary trees to decorate and add a holiday smell to the air, light candles with holiday scents.
3 – Taste – Serve traditional holiday flavors and combinations like this cranberry orange bread, these molasses cookies, and this cranberry raspberry holiday punch. Combine the holiday flavors with your non-holiday favorites for the best Christmas party ever!
4 – Touch – Create an atmosphere that feels warm and cozy like Christmas morning by putting out plush pillows and soft throws, lightning a safe fireplace, having people wear pajamas or whatever they feel most comfortable in, and using fabrics like flannel for napkins and table runners.
5 – See – This one is the easiest but just remember that it’s in the details. It’s in the use of Christmas party printables, in serving candy canes from a wooden sleigh, in adding of tiny ornaments to that rosemary tree, in putting together Christmas favors for everyone to take home.
No need to go overboard but try to keep things put together, tied to the theme, and colorful (unless you’re going with an all white winter wonderland of course!).
#6 – Enlist help
I really should’ve made this #1 because in my opinion it’s probably the most important. I always recommend enlisting help no matter how big or small the party is.
Why?
Because if you don’t, you’re not going to have any time to enjoy the party yourself. And isn’t the point of hosting parties to spend time with other people?
I know that’s why I do it!
Ask friends to bring certain dishes, have your best friend come help setup beforehand, put someone else in charge of making sure food is constantly stocked. Or even hire help out.
It doesn’t really matter how you do it as long as you do it. Don’t host a party that you’re not going to be able to enjoy.
And that’s it. Those are my best tips for holiday entertaining. What are yours? Leave me a comment with your tips for the best Christmas party ever and who knows, maybe they’ll make it into an updated version of this post!
#7 – Embrace the Christmas Music
As they tell us in Elf, Christmas music can boost Christmas cheer! Embrace the Christmas music by playing a playlist of your favorite Christmas songs (this Christmas song list is a good start) and even playing games surrounding Christmas music!
I’ve included a free printable Christmas song game below but if you need some more ideas, these games are all Christmas music related!
- Christmas music bingo
- Christmas floor game (includes songs, albums, and more!)
- Christmas name that tune
- Christmas song game (carol matching!)
- Christmas rhyming game (using Christmas carols)
Printable Christmas Carol Game
One of my favorite Christmas song games is this Christmas carol game that will have people trying to come up with the actual name of the Christmas song when they’re only given a silly mixed up version! You can download the Christmas Carol game below!
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Or if you’d prefer to not provide your email address, you can buy a copy in my shop here.
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