It’s the holiday season, collegiettes, and you know what that means. Pull out those ugly Christmas sweaters and buy some eggnog because it’s time to plan the perfect holiday party! Whether you are trying to put together a Christmas party for you and your friends before you leave school, or want to host one for your friends at home, we’ve got you covered. Check out these holiday party ideas to ensure your party is the best one this holiday season!
Ugly Sweater Christmas Party
This one is probably the easiest and most obvious of the holiday parties, but who doesn’t love ugly Christmas sweaters? Head over to Walmart and choose from a variety of sweaters and vests decorated with Santa, reindeer, and snowmen. Then meet up at a dorm or house and vote on who has the ugliest Christmas sweater. Be sure to add reindeer antler headbands, light-up necklaces, bows and tinsel to the outfit to set yourself apart. If someone shows up with the same sweater as you, vote on “Who Wore It Best” or upload a photo to Facebook and let others decide. Lastly, take a picture of all of you together in your ugly sweaters and turn it into a Christmas card to send to family and friends.
Cookie Exchange
Each person bakes about a dozen to 2 dozen batches of cookies and brings them to the party along with the recipe. Then everyone tries each other’s cookies and collects the recipes to bring home to try to make on their own. Vote on whose cookies are the most delicious, best decorated or most unique.
Santa “Bar Crawl”
This one is for collegiettes over 21. Instead of hopping from bar to bar dressed up as Santa (yes, a very popular event in major cities), make a variety of Christmas drinks and station them in different rooms of your house or spots in your dorm room. Dress up as Santa, elves, or wear your most festive holiday outfit to keep up the holiday spirit and rate the drinks you like best as you go around. Then once you’ve tried them all, see if you can guess what the recipe is for your favorite.
Cookie Baking & Decorating Party
Invite all your friends over to your mod, dorm with a kitchen, or house for a cookie baking party. Make your favorite sugar cookie recipe or to save time, buy the already made cookie dough, roll it out and make cut outs of your favorite holiday shapes. If you don’t have cookie cutouts, get creative and try to roll out shapes, or bake the cookies as circles and get fancy with your decorations. Make sure you have lots of frosting and sprinkles because they may end up in your belly before they actually make it on to the actual cookie.
Holiday Movie Marathon
Pick out your favorite holiday movies, pop some popcorn, make hot chocolate and invite your friends over for a low-key movie marathon party. Have everyone wear their most festive pajamas (fingers-crossed they are footie-pajamas). Some of our favorite holiday movies include: Elf, Christmas Vacation, Home Alone, Love Actually, The Santa Claus, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and The Polar Express.
Tree-Trimming Party
Each person brings an ornament, or at the party you make ornaments yourselves from kits you can buy, or plain old paper. Once you make your ornament, decorate the miniature tree in your dorm room, or that huge one in your house that exudes the smell of pine when you step near it.
Holiday Karaoke
Holiday songs put everyone in a great mood. Why not, belt out “All I Want for Christmas is You” by Mariah Carey with your friends? If you don’t have a karaoke machine, and/or can’t borrow one, you can rent one or go to a karaoke bar. Or if you are on a budget, you could always pull up the Youtube lyrics on your laptop with the music and belt out the holiday songs without the microphones. Also, if you feel really inspired, learn some holiday songs and go Christmas caroling from dorm room to dorm room, or house-to-house.
Secret Santa
This last one is one of my favorites. Put all of your friends’ names in a hat and have everyone choose a slip of paper. Then set a price limit, it can be as small as $5-$10 and go to Walmart, CVS, or Target to see what fun things you can find. Then reconvene at someone’s dorm room or house and give the gifts you purchased to the person whose name you pulled. It’s always fun to see what everyone comes up with!
Hopefully we’ve given you some good ideas for a last minute, low-budget college holiday party! Adding holiday music and attire also always adds to making any holiday party more fun and festive. These parties can be as low-key or extravagant as you want to make them, but remember no matter what you are doing, just enjoy time with your friends and have a happy holiday season, collegiettes!