How to Host Christmas for a Large Group

Are you hosting Christmas or Christmas Eve at your house this year? I applaud you! Really! Hosting a holiday gathering at your home intimidates a lot of people! But don’t let it!

By opening your home, whether you live in a large house, a 1 bedroom apartment or something in between, you are letting people know that they are welcome there. You are part of a dying art. So many people don’t want to take the time to welcome people into their home. Or maybe you feel like you don’t have the right vibe, or the best decorations, or not enough glasses. Whatever the case may be…just do it! You are building relationships within your family or your friend group. There always needs to be that one person that will host a gathering. Let that person be you!

Even if you’ve never hosted Christmas before, I’ve put together a few tips to make it easy and stress free.

1. PREPARATION – It’s the key to any great event, right? The goal is to prep ahead of time so during the party, you can actually enjoy it!
2. CHOOSE A DATE AND TIME- Some families can’t always celebrate on the exact holiday and may need to celebrate a few days earlier or even a few weeks later. When sending out an invite, I’m always a fan of stating the ending time as well. 🙂 Lol. That keeps Aunt Mary from overstaying her welcome. 🙂 Say something like…Come join us for a Christmas Eve celebration…5:00pm-10:00pm!
3. CREATE A MENU – Provide the main course and have your guests bring a dish to pass. Assign food items for each guest to bring. Even someone that doesn’t cook, can pick up rolls or a beverage.
4. ASSIGN A CLEAN UP TEAM – I’m a huge fan of this! There’s no need for you to be in the kitchen while everyone else is enjoying themselves! That makes for a bitter host or hostess! 🙂 This is especially critical if you have 20 guests or more. Try to mix and match different ages so many people are involved. For Example, A Clear the table team, A dish duty team; Tear Down team (folding up tables & chairs & putting away), Refresh Beverages & Snacks, etc. If you get enough people involved & turn on some fun music, the work will get done much more quickly and will allow everyone to move on to the next activity…like opening presents! 🙂 When sending out an email invite, indicate who’s on the clean up team(s) so family members know ahead of time. There’s less chance of a revolt if they know ahead of time. 🙂 Try to get everyone involved so every guest has a job, even if it’s Grandma & Grandpa reading a story to the young kids while the older kids and adults clean up.
5. CREATE A ROUGH OUTLINE for the party – Perhaps: 5:30pm Appetizers, 6:00pm Dinner, 7:00pm -Play games, open gifts. It’s more stress free if you have a rough idea of how the event should go. Have some back up activities in case you need them ie a fun group game, a Christmas movie, a candy cane hunt for the kids, a gingerbread house competition, ice skating, etc. The goal is to have fun spending time together so think of group games or group activities that will get everyone involved.
6. SET UP TABLES AND CHAIRS AND DECORATE TABLES 1 day before the event. Also, set out serving dishes/serving spoons and put a post it note on each platter or bowl so you know if you have enough serving dishes or you need to borrow or buy something.
7. SET UP A BEVERAGE STATION away from the food so there’s good traffic flow. Things like a punch bowl with a great festive punch, a decanter of water with cranberries and mint floating in it, a hot cocoa or peppermint mocha bar, hot cider with oranges and cinnamon sticks or anything else your guests will enjoy. Again, assign these items to your guests. All these things add up.
8. MAKE AHEAD- Make as many food items ahead of time so the day of your party, you can simply warm things up. Again, preparation is key!
9. RELAX AND FIND JOY- The day of the event, relax and find joy in the moment! Not everything will go according to plan, and that’s fine! If you are stressed, your guests will be stressed. If you are smiling and laughing, your guests will be more likely to be the same! 🙂 Enjoy and Merry Christmas!