Tropical
This one is always fun in the middle of winter, and it’s one of the easiest. It’s also one that works just as well for small offices as big ones. our local party store or Dollar General will have all the stuff you need, and it fits the budget of a small office. Grab a box of plastic leis, some fake palm trees, novelty sunglasses, some steel drum music or a Beach Boys CD, a couple beach towels thrown over chairs in the conference room, and you’re done! Have everyone wear a Hawaiian shirt, and either have a potluck featuring ham and pineapples, or get it catered by a place like Red Hot and Blue that has barbecue and cole slaw and all that good summer stuff.
(By the way, centurynovelty.com is a great place to shop for decorations and music for themed parties.)
Oscar Night
This could work in a small office but it’s better for a larger office. The party should be held either at the office or, preferably, in a reserved banquet room at a hotel. Employees wear evening clothes, and you can either have an awards show that hands out “Oscars” for silly categories (“Best Supporting Actress In An Accounting Department Comedy”) or hand out everyone’s Secret Santa gifts in an awards show-type ceremony. Go to a party store for supplies to make a Walk of Fame and personalize the stars with all the employees’ names (or just make your own out of cardboard, construction paper and glitter.) For added fun, write famous people’s names on name tags and put them in a hat and have everyone grab for one when they come in.
(The simplest way to make an Oscar statuette is just to wad up some tin foil in an oblong shape and either spray paint it gold or cover it with gold wrapping paper.)
Cheesy Christmas
This one is so much fun, because most people already have a hideous sweater they got one year for Christmas. If not, just go to the local Goodwill store and you’ll find one for two bucks. The idea is to be as tacky as possible: get some ridiculous Christmas music to play, get the most hideous decorations you can find at the dollar store, and tell everyone to dress in the tackiest holiday ensemble they can come up with. (Extra fun is when the co-worker who always wears tacky Christmas stuff thinking it’s cute shows up looking especially horrible.)
Disco Christmas
PartySuppliesOnlinecom has some great inexpensive decorations for a 70’s party, or just hit up your local party supply store for a disco ball, a colored light ball and as much gold and silver as you can get your hands on. Add a soundtrack of disco Christmas music, which you can find on Half.com or Amazon. It’s a great chance for everyone at the office to raid their closets for outfits from the past.
Hopefully this list gave you some ideas; just remember, your office holiday party doesn’t have to be expensive to be a total blast. You don’t need a lot of money – just a lot of creativity!
