It’s hard to believe that it is already December.
Your calendar is probably filled with celebrations with different friend groups, co-workers, and family. It is often hard to differentiate one party from the next. You bring a dish, you dress in red and green, and you socialize. If you are hosting this year, why not jazz things up with a theme and make your party the one that no one wants to miss?
Winter Wonderland Wine Tasting
Ask your friends to bring their favorite wines in burlap bags and have a blind wine tasting. You can choose a wine theme based on varietals or regions or even the most interesting labels. Serve foods you would traditionally find at a wine tasting, including a variety of fruits, nuts, olives, cheeses, and crackers. End the evening with a wine-glass painting party and a list of new wines to serve for the holidays.
Grinch-mas Party
There is a Grinch in every crowd and if it’s you, this is the perfect theme for your holiday party. Ask everyone to bring a board with green foods, assigning boards like dessert, salad, drinks, sides, and appetizers. As the host, you can provide the main dish – chicken pesto pasta or broccoli and spinach soup topped with pistachios and green croutons. Ask guests to channel their inner Dr. Seuss and come dressed as Whos.
Holiday Luau
If you dread the idea of returning to the cold weather, hosting a Luau is a great pick-me-up. Break out the Hawaiian shirts and leis and decorate your palm tree with holiday lights. Set up the limbo stick or play a little beach volleyball. Serve ham and cheese sliders, pineapple kabobs and Hawaiian fried rice. Provide a photo booth with props for great photos you can share on social media.
Play Holiday Trash or Treasure
This simple game requires each guest to bring a bag with six gifts – three good and three gag gifts. Players sit four at a table and play with partners like Bunco.
You will need a deck of cards and a pair of dice for the table. Players take turns rolling the dice and flipping over the corresponding card. Play continues until the first team has flipped all the cards. At each round, winners receive a good item from the opposing team and the losers get a gag gift. Look for game cards and more instructions online.
Retro Christmas
Get out your punch bowl, it’s time for a Retro Christmas! Serve popular appetizers from the 1950s including pigs in a blanket, Swedish meatballs, layered jello and stuffed mushrooms. Dress in your vintage cocktail dresses and don’t forget your favorite holiday brooch. Play 1950s Christmas songs including Jingle Bell Rock and The Chipmunk Song. Send your guests home with a retro ornament.
Have an Exchange
You have probably heard of people participating in cookie or ornament exchanges to celebrate the holidays with friends. If those items don’t excite you, there are plenty of other things you can exchange as gifts. Consider exchanging fuzzy socks, wine, favorite-thing baskets, coffee mugs, books, or spa items. Let your guests pick their gifts by reading a pass-the-gift story, as a Secret Santa, or simply by choosing numbers.
Homey Holiday Party
This is an easy party for a small group. Turn off the overhead lights and visit in the glow of firelight or strings of holiday lights. Encourage the guests to dress comfortably, offering cozy slippers or warm socks when they arrive. Serve a communal meal that you can all share like a cheese fondue or a hot pot. Invite your guests to bring their favorite board games and spend the night making memories.
Christmas Carol-oke
If your friends are feeling festive, why not have them over for a Christmas Carol-oke? You will find instrumental versions of Christmas Carols as well as lyrics on tistheseasonto.be. Let the players choose their own songs or have a random pick from a Santa hat. You can also play Christmas song charades or Name that Tune.
Mrs. Claus’s Spa Night
Invite your friends over for a night of pampering. Listen to instrumental Christmas music while your guests paint their nails, wear peel-off face masks, or refresh their dry skin with scented moisturizers. You can also set up crafting stations to make bath bombs with baking soda, citric acid, Epsom salt, cornstarch, and essential oils. If your guests would prefer to make candles, you can melt down dollar store candles to pour into holiday molds.
The 12 Days of Christmas Party
Most bunco groups are 12 people so this one is perfect for your holiday Bunco party. Assign each member a numbered day of Christmas. Ask them to come dressed to represent that number as well as bring an appetizer, dessert, or drink to fit the theme.
For example, if you got the sixth day of Christmas, (“six geese a laying”) you could wear a goose hat and bring deviled eggs. It will be fun to see how creative your guests can be.
Pam is a writer who enjoys writing about party planning, fun facts, lifestyle, and women’s health.
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