i'm not going to make this blog all fluffy and pretty. lets skip to the nitty gritty.
my friend karrie and i hosted the church Christmas Party this year. we thought it would be fun to have a theme and went with Christmas Movies. "Lights, Camera, Christmas". so of course we jump on pinterest and there were lots of ideas for "Elf" parties... but not all different parties... so we sorta started from scratch.
what we knew:
we'd be having 9 tables to accommodate our guests
we wanted to play 3 games
we would give 3 door prizes
we wanted the food and decor to go right in with the theme
what we did:
after much googling, we
picked 9 Christmas Movies to base the party around:
1. Charlie Brown Christmas
2. Elf
3. The Santa Clause
4. A Christmas Carol
5. A Christmas Story
6. Christmas Vacation
7. White Christmas
8. It's a Wonderful Life
9. How the Grinch Stole Christmas
games we played:
Christmas Movie Character Mingle Bingo
this was incredibly chaotic. we needed a game that required people to mix and mingle. we assigned everyone a (semi)famous Christmas Movie Character at the beginning of the night. we had bingo cards. they had to find the characters to get a bingo by walking around and asking who people were.
Christmas Movie Quotes
played as a table (rather than individually). we gave a list of movie quotes i compiled with the help of google...
easy and fun
Name that Christmas Character
this game got changed a jillion times. originally, i thought it would be fun to have a "fashion show" with people dressed as characters. but that was too complicated.
then i created a Power Point with 15 famous characters...
only to realize, we didn't have the necessary equipment in the cafeteria.
soooo... thankfully Karrie took the 15 power point pics and printed them on 1 sheet of paper and numbered them 1-15... each table got one... and a paper to fill in Character and Movie.
i think this was the funnest game. yes, funnest IS a word!!
Decor
we wanted to room to resemble the explosion of paper chains and snowflakes in Elf. turns out, our husbands have limited patience for hanging said chains and snowflakes. still, i think it turned out nicely :)
Centerpieces
i wanted each table to be decorated like one movie and have iconic items from that movie. of course i procrastinated on shopping, so my vision was complete.
anyway... first i found the Movie Posters for each of the nine movies... printed them and framed them in cheap dollar store frames.
i alsoo picked one famous quote from each movie and made little... stick things. you'll see...
i tried to use different food from "elf"
try finding a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree when you want it. i thought i was going to go nuts chasing one down. when all was said and done, like 4 people came to me and said "i have one you could've borrowed!" ugh. now i have my own!!
for the "Christmas Vacation" table, we did a "jelly of the month" centerpiece. guests also took jars home with them :)
if you've seen "White Christmas" i took this idea from the train scene when they are singing about snow.
the quote i used for "It's a Wonderful Life" was about the bells... and getting wings... so i used bells for the centerpiece. could've been better... next time :)
OMGosh.... this table drove me NUTS! i have a cute standard Christmas centerpiece there... and i WANTED to put my husbands novalty rifle lighter in it!!! but we couldn't find it!!! nor could we find one to buy!! but this great movie has plenty of iconic items to choose from: leg lamp, red rider bb gun, bunny pj's... i should've bought a few ornaments to stick in there. ugh.
at the Grinch table, our friend created a little dog pulling the sled replica from the movie. GREAT JOB TRACY!!
yeah, i couldn't pull this one together at all...
or this one...
Jelly of the Month Club Cupcakes
yellow cake. strawberry jelly filling. for half of them, i baked the jelly right in. for the other half, my fabulous hubby did the cone cut out, fill with jelly, put cut out cake back, then frost. buttercream frosting dyed pink (and some left white)
Grinchy Cupcakes
Chocolate cake, green buttercream frosting, and a serious lack of planning on my part! the eyes should be yellow not orange. and i should have done these first. by the time i did these, i was SO OVER IT!!
Swirly Twirly Gum Drop Cupcakes White Christmas Cupcakes
white cake dyed, swirly buttercream frosting. white wrappers, white cake, white
gum drop on top. buttercream frosting, white edible glitter.
Candy Cane Forest Cupcakes... white cake mix, crushed candy canes baked in and sprinkled on top of the buttercream frosting.
background music
karrie and her great hubby downloaded music from each of the movies, and that was played in the background :)
so that's pretty much it. dinner was catered, so that was just regular.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
the REAL underwear on the LEFT, mystery underwear on the RIGHT!!!
