How to Host a Fabulous Christmas Party!

Hosting a party can be a big undertaking, especially during Christmas time, when there are a billion other things going on. Putting together a fabulous and fun Christmas party can be pulled off, however, and with style and on a budget. Here are the key ingredients:

An empty Christmas tree with plenty of room for friends to spruce it up with their creations and personal gifts.

Plenty of materials to make ornaments. Pipe cleaners, markers, Styrofoam shapes, stencils, paints, egg cartons, construction paper, scissors, glue sticks, old magazines, and anything else you can think of.

Lots of ornament hooks. Otherwise, how will you hang the ornaments up?

Wine, Soda, and a delicious holiday punch. If you mix Hawaiian Punch with ginger ale and rum and mix in some rainbow sherbet for festive measure.

Instead of regular plastic cups, opt for more colorful disposable tumblers. Get a lime green or bright purple, and match your napkins and plates to the color theme. Do not bother with prints. They are expensive and usually only come about eight to a package. Stick with a color theme that you love and work in shapes and colors that work with the theme.

Make small diverse platters with cheese, meats and crackers as well as more finger food type sandwich stuff. Do not buy pre made platters. You can do a better job yourself, plus the stuff will be more fresh, hand picked, and more reasonably priced. That way no one gets stuck taking home the pimento loaf that no one else wanted to eat at the party.

Invitations. Turn the back of the invitations into a space for your guests to brainstorm their ornament making ideas. Have them bring the invites with them and create their brainstorms for your tree.

You may want to offer all the same supplies to everyone. For example, as each person comes in give them a small bag with a certain amount of craft items in it, and each person has to use the same items to create their own unique design.

Dress up clothing. Sure, arts and crafts are fun. But they are way more fun when you are doing them in formal attire. The novelty of sitting around kindergarten style in cocktail dresses is an opportunity that no one should pass up. Make it a fun sort of dress up, maybe a seventies or fifties theme.

A fabulous host/hostess. For better or for worse, you set the tone of your Christmas party. Make sure you do not take on so much that you are not having a good time. If you are not having fun, then what is the point of having a party in the first place? Make sure that you let people help with things like bringing drinks or helping you put together favors if need be. Most of all, enjoy your party time. Keep your mood high, and everyone else will reach to stay up there with you.