Organising a Christmas party doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. You can still have plenty of fun, and host a beautiful Christmas party on a budget. We have pulled together a few ideas to help you plan the best Christmas party on a budget this festive season.
Budget Planning Tips
Christmas snacksFirst things first, set your budget. It’s very easy to say you’ll only spend a certain amount on a Christmas party, but it’s even easier to allow yourself to go over budget slightly on things. This will add up. So, start out by mapping out exactly what you need for decorations, snacks, drinks so that you have a clear idea of what you will spend.
When making your budget prioritise items for the party, whether that’s food and drinks over decorations or getting a venue over everything else. It will help you figure out how much you’re willing to spend on each category, which will make it easier to budget everything.
When it comes to the invites, no need to buy fancy invites. You can do a two for one and add an invite in your Christmas cards or you can use Canva to create a simple digital invite to send out.
Food and Drink
Image by Brooke LarkFigure out who you’ll be inviting. This could be family, friends, colleagues or whoever you feel like inviting. This will help you figure out the amount of space you need and then you can sort out a budget for food and drinks depending on how many mouths you need to feed.
For a smaller affair, it may be easier to host the party at your home and make a simple meal that’s easy to portion for the food to start the party off.
Although you’d be hosting it would be good, cost-wise, to make the party a bring your own booze party.
You can have a hot chocolate or soft drinks bar for those who don’t bring alcohol so everyone can have a drink. This would also mean only the people who want/ do drink can have a drink at the party, and it would take alcohol off your shopping list as its typically quite expensive.
For snacks and drinks when the party gets going Christmas themed paper plates and cups would be good. You can purchase them in bulk at a low price from pound stores and it will help with the clean up after the party.
When getting snacks, consider purchasing generic unbranded snacks. Food is food, you don’t need to pay £1.50 for Doritos when you can get tortilla chips for 70p. It really doesn’t matter because you’ll decant the items anyway. And in our opinion they taste better anyway!
Decorations
Image by Eugene ZhyvchikYou don’t have to decorate the entire house. Just decorate the key areas where your guests will be. For example, decorating the kitchen, the living room and the bathroom which your guests will use.
When it comes to buying decorations pound stores will have you sorted, for cheap and pretty items. You can also DIY paper decorations to keep costs down.
If you’re holding a party during the evening you can light the main rooms with candles and string lights to keep a warm festive atmosphere.
Activities
Instead of getting a DJ, just pull out a Christmas playlist. Whether this is on a streaming app like Apple Music or Spotify or if it’s a classic Christmas CD, save money on someone picking the songs if you can do it yourself before the party.
For party games you can check out our post 11 Fun Christmas Games, to get an idea of fun DIY or low-cost games you can play.
You might also like:
- Cosy Christmas Playlist
- 15 Fun Christmas Party Themes
- Ideas for Socially Distanced Christmas Parties
- Christmas Fancy Dress Ideas
