Dear Reader, if you are looking for an unforgettable fairy of emotions and memories when organizing you corporate or private par, just stake on your creativity and individual touch.

Every year we receive a lot of requests from our clients, partners and friends to help them with our professional advices and ideas when organizing their corporate party or an upcoming friends party at home.

We decided, it is time to start giving you party tips based on our professional experience. We strongly believe that we will make your life happier and will easily design your time. Your days will be full of passion, and you will feel joy and satisfaction from the magic of the successful party and the happy memories with good friends you will create.   

The fairy tale starts like this:

Ideas for Christmas Party and how to creation a  Magical Christmas Spirit

For six years now, our team gives birth to unforgettable themed events and spreads the Christmas magic to thousands of smiley faces.

We will share useful ideas, ready to be implemented from big companies with great budgets and also from smaller companies with limited resources. 

Christmas is the most magical, full of expectations holiday. These days, your  dreams come true. These days we write a letter to Santa Claus...sometimes on the white sheet of paper we leave signs of tears…tears from joy, tears from strong believe, tears for new expectations. 
At Christmas holidays we are sure that all of our friends and close relatives are healthy and happy. 
At Christmas days and nights we pray to the universe and vision our dreams.  
In the magical night the fairies give us strength, goodness and a feeling for endless beautiful tenderhearted deeds.

When you start planning your Christmas party try to think who do you cloud help with something. You can make the holiday of a child in an orphanage warmer and cozier only if you give them a present or even an old dress from the wardrobe that you haven’t worn the last two years. Your party is going to be a lot more meaningful if you succeed to gather even a small amount of money for a good cause.

We are going to continue our concrete practical ideas in the next issue of our event tips.

Before starting the preparation for your corporate party, search the information you need: what is the budget you have, how many guests are you going to invite, what are their expectations for the party, what are their interests and how do they like to have fun, what kind of food they prefer, what type of location is going to make them satisfied – bar, restaurant, hotel out of town, discotheque? The full and correct information is a guarantee for a successful Christmas party. This rule is used for all kinds of events you have to organize.
Also consider whether or not to save nerves, time and finances if you prefer to choose a professional company to organize events. This ensures your good mood and preserves from spared nerves, disgruntled colleagues and often it saves money for gifts.

If you have already gathered the information, you should move to the next level. Then you have to choose the place or you have to create a concept. You can start both ways – first you can choose the perfect location and then create concept according to the atmosphere, or you can create the concept first and then again according to it to find the perfect place. For example, a Chocolate Christmas party or a Hawaii Christmas concepts are not going to be relevant for an Irish pub with wooden tables and benches. It is important your colleagues and clients to notice the effort and the thought you have put into the event in order it to be unforgettable. Every detail matters. In Bulgaria also people appreciate the events filled with creativity, concept and perfect organization. And when you do it with your soul, I guarantee that you are going to be loved by the most of the guests.

Let’s suppose that you have chosen a piano bar for your Christmas party. That type of location suggests the food to be on a buffet and everyone to self caters themselves. Do not focus your energy mainly on the food, thinking that it is the only thing that drives guests to come to the party. I don’t deny that one of the most important elements of an event is the quality food, connected to the whole concept. In this way you should calculate about 500 – 600 g finger food per person. The maximum is 800 g per person. When you have requested an offer from a catering company don’t forget to ask for the quantity of everything. Like this you can easily calculate the food. It is good to have a diversity of the food and it to be connected in some way with the concept of the event. For example, if you celebrate Mediterranean Christmas, it would be great to have meals from different countries from this region – fish bites, vegetable bites, Kish Loren and everything that the imagination of the chef could realize.

Put the drinks on the bar or on a separate buffet. When you contract the drinks, be sure that all bottles are available and control the quantities. Do not open all the bottles of wine beforehand. Be careful what the guests prefer to drink and change the red wine with white if this is what they want. Be sure that you order red and white wine at one and the same price. This rule is also the same for the hard alcohol. The most ordered drinks are whiskey and vodka.  Through our experience we have noticed that the optimal quantity of drinks is to plan 100 ml hard alcohol, a glass of wine, two soft drinks per person and some beers. So if you are expecting 100 guests, it is good to order around 20 beers. Be ready to make changes with the beer and the soft drinks, for example. I am sure, there won’t be any problems with the negotiation in any bar, discotheque or restaurant. If your Christmas party will be in a hall with catering food, the catering company is making the order for the drinks and it is harder to make any changes. Finally, your office will be full of bottles after the party...
Do not forget to choose the drinks according to the concept of the event. If you will celebrate a German Christmas with sausages, have an accent on the beer. If you prefer an Argentinean Christmas with tango, be sure to provide Sangria or passionate wine.

After every Christmas party make a dossier - what have you planned and what realized after all for every detail – the number of the guests, the number of the invited guests, the consumed food and drinks and etc…

The next step is the creating of the concept. Try not to repeat the concept every year. If you have enough budget you can hire a band, trio or duo singers. They must be relevant with the concept of the party. A dance group also can be included. The other surprises should be made by you. In addition – you better do that if you are making the event alone. In our professional experience we have organized: Christmas in Hawaii, Chocolate Christmas, Retro Christmas, Christmas on a Cruise, Magical Christmas, Worldwide Christmas, Pirate Christmas, Cowboy Christmas, Hippie Christmas, Greek Christmas, Christmas in Argentina, Mr and Miss Christmas…

After you are ready with the concept, make the design of the invitation. The most commonly practice is to e-mail invitation. Thus prepress and printing are not necessary costs. You will need them only for design. In case, you are going to organize a Venetian ball, it would be great to have an invitation in the form of a mask. Do not miss the following information: when, where, on what time, dress code, RSVP and a short funny text giving some information for the program. If your guests feel the spirit of the invitation, they are going to be ready for an unforgettable Christmas party. There are a lot of options for original invitations. Bake Christmas cookies and label them with colored paint for dough - when, where, what. Buy sugar stick, draw eyes, attach a small card with the information and here's another invitation.  Our client had the idea to shoot all their employees with Christmas hats, personalized with their names and use the image as a corporate card, and as an invitation for the company Christmas party for clients. Then each employee kept the hat for the party.

Think about the decoration. In case you determine the colors of the event to be white and red, they must be the key to the decoration. Choose white Christmas trees with red balls and red table covers with white candles. Imagine the whole bar to shine in white and red. And when the guests come with elements of their dresses in the same colors, then the magical Christmas is totally on. If you do not have enough budget, you can do self made decoration – stars, toys, pack old boxes of shoes with bright paper, dye bottles of wine in red and add a white candle, write the corporate logo on it. There are a lot of opportunities. Only the enthusiasts with free time are needed.
You can brand the corporate logo on Christmas socks. Decorate the place with them. You can add Christmas bonuses and vouchers for presents in them for your employees. 

Do not forget to arrange a photographer and a video operator (if it is possible) to catch every moment. You can hang the pictures on a table in the office and you will recharge every time you pass by it with magical energy. Upload the pictures on the corporate web site of the company so the employees could show them to their families, clients or anyone who couldn’t come to the party. 

Here are some funny Christmas games. You can use to animate the guests at your Christmas party. 

You can determine a person to announce every new guest that arrives and to “crown” them with a Christmas hat and the guest’s name on it. Meanwhile the host can read something humorously about the arriving person. 
This animation is perfect at parties where guests do not know each other. The Christmas hats with individual names are going to help much more than the ordinary badge. Furthermore, everyone will take his/her hat as a present. 

Do not forget to prepare a small present for every guest for the end of the evening. It can be just a Christmas sock full of candies or a voucher for present, or а branded Christmas souvenir. Keep in mind to make a connection between the present and the concept of the event.

Successful option is (if you don’t have enough budget for individual gifts) to tell everybody to take a present whitin a definite value. The present is put into the bag of Santa Claus. During the evening, every guest receives a present from the special guest from Lapland. If you do not have enough budget for an animator in the role of Santa Claus, you can camouflage one of your colleagues. It is important for him/ her to have a sense of humor and to improvise. You can find Santa Claus costumes for 10 BGN at the party stores that will do a great job.

Prepare for each guest a Christmas wish. Give them to the people arriving at the entrance. In case you dispose with a Snow White or Santa Claus or just one of them, let them do this generous Christmas act.

If your team is small – up to 40 persons, you can prepare Christmas cakes with a coin in one of them; so that everyone could try his/her luck for the New Year. The ones that have the coins can participate in a game to prove their luck.

It is always fun to organize dance contest. There is a wide range of music and you can select the dances according to the concept. It is important to define a jury and to provide prizes. They can be absolutely little and symbolic but it is important to stimulate the participants to give their best in the contest.

Music Idol is very common game on a Christmas party. People love to express themselves and to be on the scene. Often our colleagues surprise us with a lot of talent.

You can organize also nominations. It always contributes for a fun atmosphere. Think about funny nominations like “The biggest fan of the boss”, “Fan of the good cuisine”, “Most smiley face”…there are a lot of options. Think about prizes – statues, drink, etc.

The photo contest is another option for a Christmas event. Make a photo studio at the entrance so that every guest can take a picture with Snow White, Santa Claus with Christmas hats, horns and so on. Upload the pictures on the lap top and screen them with a projector. It is good to make beforehand a slide show with the invitation’s design and to add the pictures. The winners are defined by the guests’ applause. 

Buy a collection of sugar sticks. Break them into half pieces. At the entrance you can hand out the halves to different men and women and then they will have to find their other halves. They will have a lot of fun while looking for their halves and even if they don’t know each other. Then the new pairs will be great participants for the games.