19. Food + Drink: DIY Donuts
What’s better than an endless amount of tasty sweet treats ready to be eaten? Sweet treats with your preferred toppings. Hire a donut food truck to cook up some piping hot dough rings and set out a smorgasbord of toppings choices.
20. Get Culinarily Educated
Calling all Julia Childs and Gordon Ramsays (just no yelling, please). Take a company-wide cooking class and ensure you end up with some new knife skills and a delicious homemade dinner.
21. Crafty craft cocktails
In lieu of hiring a bartender, set up a mini bar and let guests craft their own drinks. Organize mixers, tinctures, spirits, and herbaceous ingredients like rosemary, mint, sage, basil, cilantro, and thyme, along with suggested recipe cards. Don’t forget the muddlers and shakers.
22. Attire: Channel your inner Martha Stewart
Aprons! Buy a box of cheap holiday print aprons for guests to take home with them.
Pro Tip
A&M Events says you should allocate your total budget before you sign any vendor contracts. You want to make sure you have every piece covered so you don’t run out of money too soon.
Theme: Holidays Around The World
23. German party game
Translation: Chocolate Eating – Schokoladenessen is a German party game where players sit in a circle and roll and pass the dice until someone rolls a double. Whoever rolls a double puts on the hat, scarf, and gloves and tries to unwrap the candy bar, using the kitchen utensils, and eat all the candy before someone else can roll a double. The new double roller then takes over the hat, scarf, and gloves and continues eating the chocolate. The game ends when you’re outta chocolate. Of course, this can always be modified into an adult version with drinks, but we’ll leave that up to you.
24. Break out the blindfold
In Mexico, piñatas are not just for birthdays. Buy a safe for work-themed piñata and stuff it with goodies like airplane-sized shooters of booze, candy, and toys even adults would love, like sticky hands.
Click here if you are looking for birthday party catering for a co-worker, friend, or family.
25. Food + Drink: Aren’t We Potlucky
Hire a food truck, or organize catering to provide the main meal (like empanadas), then create a sign-up list for employees to reserve a traditional holiday side dish from another country. Start with potato latkes from Israel, mince pies from England, chocolatey Bûche de Noël from France, spiced hot chocolate from Peru, and for those who don’t cook, KFC from Japan.
26. Attire: Guest choice
Encourage guests to wear garb traditional from the region of the dish they brought.
Pro Tip
Wild Sky Events assigns every task to a team member to make sure nothing falls through the cracks during planning, set up, execution, and wrap. A well-organized Google Doc with a name next to each to-do ensures everybody knows who is responsible for what.
Theme: Let The Games Begin
27. Take me out to the ball (or puck) game
Hockey, basketball, and football are all in full swing during November and December, so round up the troops and turn your corporate holiday party into a sports-fueled soiree. A fun perk idea? Provide everyone with a hat or shirt to cheer on your team.
28. Slippery banana peels not included
When does one get the opportunity to jump behind the wheel of 5 horsepower and whoop his or her colleagues in go kart racing? Your corporate holiday party should be just that opportunity.
29. High score!
Run free into the flashing lights of the arcade and connect with your colleagues as you challenge each other to air hockey and PAC-MAN, or share futile attempts to claim that plush Batman with the impossibly flimsy claw.
30. Food + Drink: Ballpark favorites
Prepare employees for a night of junk food: ballpark hot dogs, salty nachos, cotton candy, Bud Light in an aluminum bottle, pretzels and “cheese.”
31. Attire: Athletic casual
Anything that lets you move.
Theme: Santa Con
32. Gift exchange
A Secret Santa or White Elephant can make even the most unbearable parties a little better because… gifts. And if you don’t know what to give, this gift compilation will help you find the perfect present for your co-worker.
33. Pin the nose on Rudolph
Without his nose so bright, Rudolph won’t be able to guide Santa’s sleigh tonight! Put on the blindfold, take a few dizzying spins, and listen to the laughter as everyone witnesses you stumble your way to Rudolph to try to save the day.
34. Say cheese
Get proof that it did, in fact, happen. A photo booth (bonus points if it’s branded like these done by Gold Frame Media) is essential to remember what happened at your corporate holiday party. It’s also a reminder to try to keep yourself in check.
35. Food + Drink: Holiday treats
Go all out with the red and white: strawberries topped with whipped cream, bowls stuffed with candy canes, red velvet crinkle cookies, winter white red velvet fudge, sangria with stocking-shaped ice cubes, tomato and mozzarella kabobs.
36. Attire: Reverse Santa
Our own CEO, Ross Resnick, suggests a unique spin on staff dressing in head to toe red and white: “everyone dresses like Santa, but you hire a model to come dressed as an office worker for everyone to take pictures with.”
Pro Tip
When it comes to capturing memories, Bixel & Company likes to take the traditional photo booth to the next level with virtual reality, green screen effects, and morphing. The Party Goddess, an LA-based event producer who’s handled parties for celebs like Sofia Vergara and Snoop Dogg, suggests projecting the photobooth images in real time so everyone can watch the party progress. And A&M Events likes to extend photo opps outside the booth with “Instagram-able moments” like a bespoke backdrop near the entrance or a crazy dessert display near the back of the space.
Theme: Movie and Reindeer Games Night
37. Put on the classics
Home Alone, It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story, Elf … the holidays are the perfect time to recline and take in some classics. Dim the lights, pass the popcorn, and get everyone comfy for the cherished tradition of watching classic movies and collectively quoting all the best lines. And hey, if there’s booze around, why not create a whole new drinking game? Here’s one to get you started: Take a drink every time Buddy says “Santa” in Elf.
38. Ok, who wrapped this thing?
There are a few variations on this classic holiday game. One way to play is to wrap a gift in countless layers of wrapping paper and pass it around the circle to be unwrapped one layer at a time. Whoever tears off the last bit wins the gift! Another way is to take turns attempting to open the gift with bulky oven mitts.
39. Musical cheers
Just no one get hurt, okay? Sprinkle some Christmas spirit over the beloved classic game musical chairs by playing only holiday music to signal the circling of the chairs.
40. Cheer pong
Use jingle bells instead of ping pong balls for a holiday twist on a cherished drinking game. Just don’t jingle all the way to a hangover.