Christmas is only a couple of days away this week and New Years only a few days after that! With everyone finally being able to get together with their families this year, we know many of you are scrambling to get all the festivities together for a successful Christmas party. How will you be decorating your table settings?! What delicious food will be served?! What games and activities will you play?! So many things to arrange before the holiday night!
WonderSip is here to help! Allow us to give you some suggestions for the most memorable parties and family gatherings of the year!
Decorating your Christmas/Holiday Table
Depending on your aesthetic preferences here are a couple of suggestions on how to decorate your dinner table that is sure to delight your guests and bring that festive spirit to your meal!
Of course, these various table settings vary in style but they all share the basic structure that includes a table runner, nice glasses, napkins, pretty plates, and shining cutlery. In addition to these elements allow us to suggest our very own WonderSip Straws to the mix. The colorful quality of WonderSip Straws are sure to add that further pop of color among the glasses and is an excellent way to avoid any disposable straws at the party.
Outdoor table setting
If you are fortunate enough to live in an area where you can stand the elements and weather outside, an outdoor dinner would be an excellent setting for your Christmas/Holiday meal. If its way too cold to stand the snow and breeze where you reside, you may still be able to replicate this vibe indoors by slinging lighting to and from one side of the dining room to the other. In addition to this, you can bring the outside in by decorating with natural elements like tree branches, berries, and wooden accents among your table settings’ plates and runner.
Centerpieces can include pine tree branches (maybe some leftover from our Christmas tree), berries, pomegranates, branches, dried oranges, and other seasonal fruits.
An excellent color palette to follow for this style of table setting is a variety of darker greens, brown, and red to match the natural elements your table is set with.
Pink/ Colorful Table Setting
Non-traditionally Christmas color table settings are an excellent choice for the holidays as well! It is always fun to take a break from the norm of the usual green and red Christmas color palette and choose to decorate with a color like pink!
In order to achieve this look use a variety of pink-colored plates, decorations, and glassware. Maybe even if you can find some pink cutlery but it is also an excellent choice to use silver or gold-colored cutlery for a touch of luxury and elegance. The use of analogous colors alongside the majority of pinks also pair nicely with the rest of the decorations.
We love this Pink aesthetic table setting (it is also an excellent choice to use the Pink WonderSip Straw in the pink glasses)
Minimal Decoration
This table setting uses a limited color palette using a majority of neutral colors like white, off-white and light browns. The plates are set on natural woven placemats which add the perfect amount of texture to the minimal setting. While minimal the table setting doe not feel cold with the use of warm lighting and fluffy chair covers. Use some candle sticks and various paper lanterns like pictured above to add even more of a cozy feeling to the whole table setting.
This table setting would be an excellent opportunity to use the the clear WonderSip Straw as well! They would really compliment the minimal style of the whole table setting.
Delicious Recipes for your Holiday Dinner
Everyone looks forward to the main event at any party…the dinner! The food!
Tamales
A staple at many Mexican and Latin American households, tamales are an age old tradition to be had during the Christmas season!
Tamales are a great choice to add variety to your feast as they can be made in many flavors from chile and cheese, to chicken, beans, pineapple, and so many more options to fill them with. They also pair well with rice and beans!
Roast Chicken with Carrots
Roast a whole chicken for the whole family to enjoy as the Christmas dinner centerpiece of the table. Check out this recipe for even more detail on how to create this delicious roast.
Among the sides to accompany this roast can include some mashed potatoes, salad, green beans, biscuits, pasta, and maybe even some garlic bread.
An excellent drink to have along with these meals can be some warm mulled wine, sparkling apple cider, sangria, wine and or sparkling water.
Activities and Games to Gather the Entire Family!
Nothing beats the family time we get to enjoy this time of year but sometimes it may be a challenge to get everyone together. Maybe some of these activity suggestions can help with that predicament.
The Big Ball of Prizes
Everyone loves to receive gifts on Christmas and with the Big Ball of Prizes Activity no one will feel left out!
This activity involves you acquiring various small gifts, can be from the dollar store, gift cards, or whatever you think will be a good fit into the ball that everyone would enjoy receiving. You must wrap all of the gifts you buy into a giant ball in various layers of gift wrap. Each gift is on its own layer of paper. Wrap that gift as much as you can, the bigger the gift ball, the better!
For a more eco-friendly option, save any leftover piece of paper, paper shopping bag, newspaper, paper advertisement, or paper wrapping you may have in order to use that as your gift ball wrapping. You can still have fun and be eco-friendly!
Once every prize has been wrapped into the giant gift ball and your guests are ready it is time to play! How you play this game is that everyone who is playing sits around the ball in a circle. Someone in the circle is designated to begin and the person right next to them on either side gets a pair of dice. On the count of 3, the game begins and the person in possession of the giant gift ball starts to unwrap the ball and the player with the dice starts to throw the dice until doubles of the same number appear on the dice. Once the player with the dice throws doubles, the person unwrapping stops what they are doing keeps any prizes they unwrapped from the ball and the person with the dice gets the next turn to unwrap. The player next to them then gets the dice and does the same. Repeat these steps for everyone in the circle around the ball until it has been completely unwrapped.
This is our favorite game and is always a favorite among party-goers.
Charades
Who doesn’t know how to play charade?! This is an excellent party ice breaker, as most people know the rules and you need next to nothing to get the game going.
It is an excellent idea to create themed charades cards to fit the Christmas theme or something everyone has in common at the party. Pick options for acting out that most people would be comfortable with and have fun doing in front of everyone!
Human Christmas Tree
Split up your holiday party into various team in order to play this game. Provide decorations that would be put on to a Christmas tree.
Garland, ornaments, stars, tinsel, etc.
Give your teams around 1 to 3 minutes to decorate their human Christmas tree and at the end have someone judge and decide which is the best in their decoration choices.
Winning team gets the title of best human Christmas tree and a prize of your choosing!
