The holidays are a great time to get in the spirit of the season with family and friends. I feel like everyone gets invited to traditional holiday parties, so when I started to plan my first holiday soirée at my new house, I decided to change things up and hop on the ugly sweater party bandwagon.
In the last few years, ugly sweater parties have become the “it” holiday festivity. Not only are they a ton of fun, but it’s hilarious to see all of the creative and absolutely ridiculous outfits that guest pull together.
After hosting a very successful ugly sweater party, that still has my family and friends talking, I decided to share a few tips on how to make yours a success too!
5 Tips for Hosting an Awesome Ugly Sweater Party
1. Quirky Invitations- The invite is the first impression of your upcoming party that your guest will receive. The design of your card really sets the tone for the get-together, so make sure design/pick the right invite. Ugly sweater parties are supposed to be silly and fun, so play with colors and festive fonts in your design. It’s also a good idea to mention that they should come dressed for the occasion, offering prizes is usually a good way to get guest to participate. If you aren’t savvy with design, that’s total cool, check websites such as Zazzle, which have a bunch of invites to choose from.
2. Set the Atmosphere-While the general idea of an ugly sweater party is to have a tacky holiday celebration; you can really have fun with personalizing the décor and feel of your party. The best thing about cheesy decorations is that you can usually find a ton of them at your local dollar store. Printed straws, napkins with witty saying, and Christmas dinnerware are all great items to have on hand.
Another element to consider to set the mood is your music selection. Since it’s the holidays you can create a playlist with a balanced mix of holiday songs and party music to keep the energy up at the party. If you really want to take it up a notch, hire a DJ, which is sure to keep the party going.
3. Signature Drinks & Snacks- You can be a guest at your own party if you properly prepare. Pre-making easy snacks and preparing a signature drink are a great way to reduce your workload during the party. For my recent ugly sweater party, I created a signature drink called a caramel apple sangria and placed it in a large beverage container. Not only was it easy to have my guest self-serve themselves, it was also cost effective and most importantly, delicious! Everyone asked me how to make it and quite honestly all I did was follow this recipe from TheWholesomeDish.com. To give it a personalized touch, I substituted the apple cider with sparking cider, added grapes and a 2-liter bottle of Sprite. My guest raved about this drink!
4. Keep Your Guest Entertained- You are going to have a lot of different personalities at a holiday party. While some people prefer to sit and mingle, others need a little more entertaining. To keep my guest busy at my party, I created a selfie station with holiday props. Everyone loved this and it kept a lot of my guest busy taking pictures and uploading them to their favorite social sites.
5. Ugly Sweater Contest- You can’t have an ugly sweater party without an ugly sweater contest. I mean, I guess you could, but that would be pretty lame. I made it a point to tell my guest that if they dressed in an ugly sweater, they would be able to enter a contest at my party. To give them incentive, I wrapped up a bunch of gifts and gave prizes for a few different categories such as the “Ugliest Sweater” and “Too Pretty”.
Have you ever hosted an ugly sweater party? Do you have any tips to make the party a success?
Lucy Valdez says
I love this! Thank you for sharing these great ideas:) I am definitely having one next year:))