The Holiday Season is a wonderful time of year to celebrate with family and dear friends. Whether you’re hosting a Christmas Eve dinner, a next-day lunch, or a children’s birthday party, there are plenty of opportunities to spend time with your loved ones.

Hosting a Christmas party can be an exciting experience. Food and decorations play a main role in creating the festive atmosphere of the holidays. Here are a few tips and suggestions that will make planning your Christmas party a breeze:

Christmas Party Invitations

First things first – send out your Christmas invitations! Christmas can be a busy time of year, as people tend to travel, visit family, and are invited to many celebrations. Make sure your guests save the date of your party by inviting them well in advance.

To create the cheerful atmosphere of Christmas, you can use invitations with Christmas images in a Red and Green palette. Fun characters of reindeer, gingerbread men, or candy canes can work great, and if you want something more classic try a mistletoe with a stripy background.

Christmas Decoration Ideas

As with the invitations, you can use the same palette of Red and Green for your Christmas party decorations. Classic patterns of stripes, chevrons, and polka dots can help create a fun and warm atmosphere, while paired with the same Christmas-themed images used for the invitations.

Christmas Table design ideas

Decorated napkin rings:

Stripy straws and labeled bottles:

Hot cocoa table with decorated cups and lots of marshmallows! Kids will love this:

Christmas Food Ideas

There are so many great Christmas recipes out there, the choice can sometimes be hard and overwhelming. To avoid confusion, I like to return to the basics – Start building your menu with your family’s traditional cuisines. It is a wonderful way to keep your family heritage alive and will give you a great starting point. After you decide on these it is easier to see what else is missing and look for more food ideas.

Also, think about building a menu suitable for the event and for your guests. A formal Christmas dinner is different than a children’s afternoon birthday party.

Don’t worry too much about creating food that LOOKS LIKE Christmas characters or images. You can always use Christmas Party Printbles to give you that cheerful look you’re after!

If you live in the southern hemisphere and are having a Summer Christmas, your menu (and entire party) will probably be different. Here are some great Summer Christmas Party Ideas to get you started!