Looking to throw a Christmas party this holiday season? I know we tend to throw one with our friends before Christmas and usually do the same theme each year such as everyone wears an ugly Christmas Sweater, and we do the funny white elephant gift exchange. That is always a blast, but I wanted to throw different themed parties not just for my adult friends but now for families who do have small kids since that is what we have as well.
I have been brainstorming and thinking about all the ideas I have saw over the years and making one epic list. I am sure this list will be forever changing, and more being added to it, but for now here are some ideas.
Hot Chocolate Bar
Have your friends and family over for a Hot Chocolate Party. You can get premade packets or make some hot chocolate in the crock pot everyone can dip from. Have some fun festive drink cups or just buy some at the store. There are lots of toppings you can put on your drinks such as peppermint, candy canes, marshmallows, cinnamon sticks, whipped cream, chocolate ships, sprinkles. Kids of all ages love to add all kind of things to their drinks! The more festive the better!
Cookie Making Party
If you are going to have a fun cookie making party, first have each family decide on a different flavor so you can get all kinds such as chocolate chip, snicker doodle, sugar cookies or gingerbread. Then you need cookies cutters, some icing and sprinkles and have the adults and kids, bake and decorate some cookies together.
When you are all done baking and decorating, you will each go home with lots of cookies to give to your neighbors, friends, teachers and coworkers as part of their gift. Also have everyone to bring over some containers to carry the cookies home with them. The kids can decorate, and the parents can talk. It is a fun activity we all can enjoy!
Gift wrapping party
This is a fun idea to do right around Christmas and without the kids. I have had all the moms come over to our house and bring all the gifts that need to be wrapped. We watched a Christmas movie, drank hot chocolate, and wrapped our Christmas presents together. If one person gets done before others, then help your friends get it all done. This also may help you get some ideas of what you want to buy for your own kids if you are needing more ideas.
Grinch Theme Night
Pull out all things Green and make some grinch themed food, wear any grinch clothes, and watch the movie “The Grinch”. Kids will love all the decor and food and spending time with their friends. Here are some grinch food ideas
Green Heart Shaped Waffles
Grinch (Green) Pancakes 1 Red Heart Sprinkle
Green Punch
Green Popcorn
Green Grinch Cookie with 1 Red Heart
Birthday Party for Jesus
The true meaning of Christmas is celebrating that Jesus came to this Earth so he could die on the cross for our sins. So why not throw Jesus a birthday party? Put up some birthday signs, have a birthday cake, blow up balloons and even sing to Jesus for his birthday. Read Matthew in the Bible and watch a Christmas movie about Jesus being born. Our family loves to watch the movie The Star during Christmas time. It’s great for young kids.
Christmas Craft Night
This is fun for a mom’s Night out or doing with the kids. Find a craft that everyone will like and get all the supplies and have everyone come over ready to create or you can do a fun kids craft that the whole family can join together to do.
Gingerbread Making
Have everyone bring over a gingerbread house and decorate gingerbread houses together. There are some really cute and fun ones out there other than the traditional ones, Target has some cute ideas such as a donut shop, camper, beach house and tree house. Have the family come over in their PJs and have Christmas music playing! What a fun evening.
Tacky Sweater
Having a tacky Christmas sweater party is always a classic thing to do. They have lots of tacky sweater decor, to make the party more themed. You can offer prizes to different categories such as tackiest, most creative, sexiest, funniest or brightest, Or just do a 1st, 2nd or 3rd place. If you want everyone to go all out offer some great prizes for the winners and be sure to let them know there will be a contest for the best one!
Dirty Santa Game
Also known as “White Elephant Gift Exchange” This can be played lots of different ways but the first thing you do is set a limit for the price each gift will be, or you can even have it to where people can bring things from around the house, they want to get rid of. It’s much more fun to make the gifts absolutely crazy. We also like to throw in some really good gifts to make people to start fighting over the items.
Again, this can be played different ways, but we first go around and have everyone draw a number randomly then start with the person who drew number 1, and they get to pick any gift out of the pile, then the person who drew number 2 goes next. They can either take the gift the first person got since they know what it is, or they can pick from the pile. We have a rule that once the gift has been stolen 3x it is frozen so the 3rd person to take it gets to keep it. The game keeps going until everyone has a choice of either stealing a present or picking from the pile of gifts. When we are at the end of the numbers and then the first person gets to have a chance to steal any present that is still available and isn’t frozen since they didn’t get to steal at the beginning of the game.
When we have kids playing this game, we play it a little different since we know kids will cry when a gift is stolen from them, so all the kids pick a number and then each number goes to get a present. We try to make sure the kids don’t go home with the present they came with unless the parents don’t care, and the kids didn’t pick out the gifts. We always have a lot of fun, and the kids love to go off and play with the toys together. If you have a lot of kids coming you can have the boys do a round, then the girls do a round.
Christmas Luau
Instead of a Christmas tradition, how about a Christmas luau. This would be super fun to do if you lived in warmer climate for sure and have a Christmas pool party but for us. It’s cold in the winter months but having a Christmas Vacation Party sounds so much fun. Have all your friends and family come over in their best Hawaiian clothes, watch the movie Christmas Vacation or have it playing in the background. Have all things summer themed food and some summer blow ups. They have some cute Leis you can get to have you and your guest wear.
Ornament Swap Party
I feel like this idea could be done in different ways. You could get all the supplies you need to make an ornament and make them together and customize it to fit your family activities and what this year has been like, or you could do a fun ornament swap/ gift exchange. If you know who all will be coming to the party, you can have each person draw names and your person who picks you picks out an ornament for you, there are so many ways you can buy an ornament for a friend. Have each person to fill out a small questionnaire and answer questions as to their favorite hobby, color, movie, tv show, kid’s activities or what would be something to sum up your year and you have been involved in. Then at the party you can exchange the ornament a great way to get to know each other better.
Polar Express Party
Polar Express is such a cute movie that you could throw for the kids to come over and watch, there are some cute decorations you can include such as a train craft, ticket invites and games. Here is another blog post of another blogger’s Polar Express Party that is super cute. CLICK HERE to read about her details.
Charcuterie Board Party
We all love some good snacks when coming to a party and charcuterie boards are always some yummy foods. Have all your friends bring some different food charcuterie board style. You can have meats, cheeses, crackers, chocolates, fruit and veggie styles. Just have each person to bring a different kind and then you have an amazing party!
Pancakes and PJs
This is a fun and easy thing to do with the kids and very little effort I feel like. We home school the kids and love to plan some play dates for them to enjoy. You can plan this for early in the morning and have all the kids come over in their PJs and serve some pancakes and other fun foods. After the kids get full on breakfast they can go play and have a good time visiting with each other. The moms can come over in their PJs too and we can just relax and talk. It’s an easy get together for everyone! We like to plan these on weekdays since we home school, and it is always a fun surprise for the kids.
Game Night
Break out the board games, minute to win it games, or video games to have a fun night with your friends. I am sure we all have so many games around our houses that we never play. You can break into groups to play or do a big group game where everyone participates. Offer some fun prizes so people can get more competitive.
Fancy Christmas Gala
OK, we are tired of all the ugly Christmas sweaters, Christmas Pjs and everything in between. Why not host a Fancy Christmas Gala. Have the decorations in black and gold or Red and Gold. Blow up some balloons and add some fancy food such as the charcuterie board as mentioned earlier and play some fun music and set up a Photo Booth!
Home Alone
We all love the classic Home Alone Movies and even our kids love this movie so throw a fun Home Alone movie night! They have some amazing decor on Etsy where you can just print off some signs or banners. There is so much you can do with this but here are some ideas for food that goes with the movie.
Cheese Pizza
Mac and Cheese
Ice Cream Sundaes
Pepsi
Elf Christmas Movie Theme Night
Elf is such a classic movie and so many cute things you can do to have a party theme around this movie. First, we know Buddy loves spaghetti with syrup so having an area dedicated to all the crazy stuff he eats such as spaghetti with syrup, candy and pop tarts you can also serve.
Beef and Cheese- “You smell like beef and cheese you don’t smell like Santa”
For the Adults- “World’s Best Cup of Coffee”
Etsy has some cute printable you can get and just print them yourselves if you wanted to decorate
Here is a blog post about a cute party another blogger did.
Santa Come Over
This has been something my friend has done for the kids for almost 5 years now. She bought a Santa suit and we both know a man who has a white beard, and he comes over to see the kids. It has always been so much fun, and the kids love it. We usually bring gifts for the kids and sneak them to Santa. As we are waiting for him to arrive, we decorate cookies or do a Christmas craft then Santa walks in ringing a bell and saying, “Ho Ho Ho” The kids get so excited!! He then sits down in the living room, and we eat cookies with him and sing songs then each kid takes a turn seeing Santa and then he passes out the gifts.
We hope this blog post helps you come up with some ideas and ways to make the holidays more magical and memorable. Have a wonderful time and Merry Christmas!