How to throw a great Christmas party

Throwing a terrific Christmas party can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. You can have anything from a catered affair featuring a sit down dinner to a simple hot chocolate and cookies open house, depending on your budget and the amount of time you want to spend. The most important thing is to make that decision early, come up with a guest list and send those invitations out now, things get hectic for everyone around the holidays. Here’s a few simple tips.

Decorations

Luckily your house will be pretty well decorated already for the holidays, so you will need to add a few simple touches to jazz things up.

• Simple luminaries look stunning and set the mood for the evening.
• For inexpensive decorations, look to nature. A basket with white lights in the bottom and pine boughs and pine cones on top looks beautiful. A bell jar filled with oranges serves as a lovely centerpiece.
• Create one or two special decorations to impress everyone. Look to Martha Stewart or similar websites for ideas, make sure though that you don’t bite off more than you can chew!
• If you have snow, make snowmen to welcome your guests.
• Light lots of candles and turn down the lights, observing basic safety rules of course. If you will have small children around or pets, consider investing in the new candles that are battery operated.

Food and Beverage

• A hot chocolate and cookie party is simple to prepare for and fun. Make a big pot of homemade hot chocolate, find a good recipe for one using a high quality chocolate like Ghiradelli. Put out bowls of whipped cream, sprinkles, chocolate syrup, sprinkles and  marshmallows so people can add their own toppings. Add trays of cookies and a few decadent desserts, and you have the perfect holiday party.
• Make sure if you are serving dinner that you have enough dishes and cutlery ahead of time so that you aren’t running out at the last minute.
• Make sure that you have an assortment of alcoholic and non alcoholic beverages available. A pomegranate champagne punch is a festive and popular choice.
• Try to make up as much of the food ahead of time so that not only do your friends and family get to enjoy the party, but you do too!

Celebrate

• Make up small gifts for your guests to take home after the party. Bags of cookies or sugared nuts or homemade ornaments are always appreciated.
• If you are inviting children make sure that you have enough activities for them to do and appropriate food.
• Remember the music! This is the time to show off your holiday music collection.
• You know your friends and family best, if you think the would be good sports, consider heading out for a while to do some neighborhood caroling or play some party games.
• Have a gift exhange, ask each guest to bring a co-ed gift to share.
• Consider giving back. Ask that your guests give a small donation that will go to the charity you choose. I had one friend use a holiday party to support a school art gallery, and another one ask all the guests to bring pet items to donate to the local no-kill shelter. Nothing puts you in the holiday spirit more than being thankful for what you have and acknowledging that there are others who aren’t so lucky.