The Top 9 Holiday Party Planning Tips
Planning a holiday party but not sure where to start? Here are my top tips! These tips will help you prep for all the festivities involving wine, cookies, candy, pies, and all the eggnog you can handle. Let’s face it, I’m kind of a Christmas addict.
The First Steps
- Choose your guest list – pick your closest friends and create a fun or unique way to invite them. The holidays are all about spending time with the most special people in your life.
- Invitations- Have fun with this! Come up with a cool design or a way to invite your friends to celebrate the holidays with you! Consider sending a small gift in the mail or even a cute stocking with an invite inside it.
- Pick a theme! Do you want to have your friends wear their ugliest Holiday sweaters, or would you prefer a fancy event? Both are fun, but you definitely don’t want to be the friend showing up in antlers and a moose sweater while everyone else is in a sparkly dress and suit.
Pre Holiday Party
- Decide on a menu, and have a plan for drinks. This is key to let your guests know whether or not they should contribute a bottle of wine or if drinks will be waiting upon their arrival. Food is also crucial. Do you want to provide a three-course meal or just serve appetizers? It’s important (and considerate) to let your guests know what sort of food will be provided so that they can plan accordingly. The last thing you want is for your guests to be hungry.
- Choose décor. Guests expect holiday parties to look and feel festive. If you can’t provide that, well, bah humbug! Keep it simple but find some cute decor or china to use so your guests can see the extra effort.
- Music playlist. Please, no Feliz Navidad on repeat. Come up with a mixture of old classics and new, fun holidayssongs. You want your guests to both relax and get their groove on.
During The Holiday Party
- Do a gift exchange. This can be simple and fun! You can set a price-limit or do a white elephant gift exchange. It’s fun to see the things your friends “want” to keep or the things they try to pawn off on others.
- Have a contest. Depending on your theme, you can do best dressed or ugliest sweater! It encourages guests to put a little extra effort into their outfits.
- Enjoy the party and maybe break out into some holiday caroling. Your neighbors will appreciate some merry “jingle bells” at their front door. Extra points if your bring them some cider.
Happy Holidays! Enjoy this time of year + the reason for the season! If you’re ready to take your holiday party to the next level, contact me on my homepage here and let’s chat!
with love + joy,
Kari
*All Photos by: Be In Love Photography
To read more about the ladies behind Be In Love Photography, check out this Feathered Arrow Community post!
