How to organise the office Christmas party

If you want your office Christmas party to be during the festive season, it can’t hurt to start planning early. For venues both large and small, Christmas is often their busiest time of year. Beat the rush and start planning ahead to avoid unnecessary stress – office Christmas parties are supposed to be fun after all. Check out some of the top tips below: they may just help your office festive celebration be the best one yet.




1.    Budget
How much money you have available will determine the sort of party you can lay on. A successful office Christmas party doesn’t have to cost the earth, so don’t panic if you don’t have thousands of pounds to spend. Find out how much money your office has set aside for such festive occasions, and go from there.

2.    Dates
The sooner you start thinking about dates, the larger the number of people who are likely to be available to make it to your office Christmas party. Chances are, you’ll struggle to find a date when literally everyone in your office can make it, particularly the closer you get to Christmas itself. You may have to come to terms with the fact that there will be people who can’t attend. Cut your losses and pick a date that the majority of people are available. You never know, if you throw a completely banging office party, people may be able to rearrange their other plans.

3.    Location
As we mentioned earlier, venues are often choc-a-bloc in the run up to Christmas. Planning in advance will help alleviate this problem, but you still might end up disappointed if you bank on one location. Find out from your colleagues the type of activities they enjoy – whether they’d rather have a formal dinner, go bowling, or hire out a pub and have a good ol’ fashioned boogie – and compile a list of suitable venues. Pick your top three from that list so that if you find out one venue is already fully booked, you’ve got a back-up plan that won’t disappoint.

4.    Theme
Adding a theme to your office Christmas party can add that extra bit of something to the evening. Whether it’s fancy dress, or an activity like a quiz, it’ll give people something to talk about other than work – if your office is the kind of place that needs prompting! It could also be a good idea to invite some old faces – work friends who may have left the company but are still in touch with a lot of people at the office.

5.    Get everyone involved with the decoration
A Christmas office party wouldn’t be truly in the festive spirit without the appropriate decorations. Hopefully the venue you are hiring will have a Christmas tree already in place, but it may need a bit of a spruce up. Check with the venue whether you are allowed to bring your own decorations first before going into decoration-planning mode. If you get the green light, asking people attending the party to bring a tree decoration with them can be a great touch. You could even do this with the office Christmas tree, rather than just for the party.

Photo: christmasstockimages.com