The best holiday party ideas, activities, and events

While there are a lot of little advantages to hosting a holiday party, the main one is that it will help your team members wind down, destress, and have some fun during what can be an otherwise stressful part of the year. These events are a good way to celebrate your team’s accomplishments throughout the year and can make the end of the year a time to look forward to. Holding a party will bring your team members together and provide them with the chance to socialize and spend time together in a casual, non-work setting.

Hosting a holiday party can also boost team morale during a time when a bit of relaxation and rest might be sorely deserved. Hosting a simple holiday event, be it a Christmas wine tasting or an online escape room, can do a lot of heavy lifting to improve people’s general sense of feeling and their workplace productivity (since a team that is upbeat and relaxed is going to perform better than a team that is stressed and harried). If you are looking for a way to improve your team’s spirits during the holiday season, one of these parties is a really good way to help make sure that everyone is in the best of moods when the days get colder and the nights get longer.

These events are also good ways to reward your team member's hard work throughout the year and get everyone together for a festive celebration. Gift exchanges, holiday parties, and other celebrations are an excellent way to show your team members that they aren’t just disjointed employees but are instead part of a cohesive unit that can work together in professional and social contexts. Coming together and celebrating shared accomplishes and looking forward to the coming year is always a good way to build team morale, and the fact that we arbitrarily decide that these events are best suited for certain times of the year should be taken as a good reason to host them when it is somewhat expected that you will do so.

Finally, holiday parties are just fun, and that alone can be a good enough reason to throw one. You don’t have to have a fancy explanation for why you would want to celebrate the holidays with your team members, so you can read on to discover some great ideas for holiday parties that can suit any team or occasion. If nothing else, the holidays offer a ready-made excuse to host an event and start socializing with your team members, and they may be more interested in attending because it happens during a time when they are expecting to celebrate, and it just feels more natural to get together during that time of year.

There are a wide range of different kinds of Holiday parties that you can host for your team members, with each option coming with its own unique advantages and perks. Some are more involved than others, which can put a bit more of the responsibility on your attendees, but the added structure of the event can make people more interested in attending. For example, hosting a virtual cooking class for the holidays might require your team members to acquire some of the ingredients on their own, but they will also know that they are leaving the event with a freshly made meal or dessert.

By contrast, something like a virtual escape room or a trivia event won’t require anyone to do anything in advance (save clear their schedules), but since people are business during the holidays, these events can be a bit easier to let fall to the wayside during the jam-packed last few weeks of the year. If there isn’t a clear end goal to attending, it may slip down on the priority list, even if it can be held in a digital space. At the same time, these events can also feel less stressful by virtue of being less structured (and requiring less of an initial investment on the part of the person attending).

You can also, obviously, hold parties or group activities for different holidays. While the end-of-year holidays (particularly Christmas and New Year) are the most common time to hold a celebration, you can also hold parties around Thanksgiving or Halloween (for two popular examples, technically, there isn’t anything stopping you from holding a Christmas party whenever you feel like it). You can also hold events for more general celebrations, like Black History Month, Women’s History Month, or Pride Month. Regardless of what holiday you are looking to celebrate, you can be sure that there are a ton of fun and customizable options available to you.

The holiday events that tend to honor the achievements and struggles of historically marginalized communities (February for Black History, June for Pride, March for Women’s History, May for AAPI History, and September for Hispanic History, among others) can be compelling, joyous, educational and fun. Consider hosting one of these events (with options for trivia, mixology, virtual tours, lectures, crafting events, and many others varying from month to month) as part of a larger initiative amongst your team during these months, or consider making smaller team building activities as part of your regular schedule during the month. You can also consider holding celebratory events for your team members during these months unrelated to the actual history of the month or the broad social goals since nothing is preventing you from celebrating Juneteenth with a holiday party, for example.

In addition to considering all of the different kinds of events that you can host and which ones are ideal for your team members, you’ll also want to consider practical concerns as well. The holidays can be a stressful time for a lot of people, and you want the event to be relaxing and enjoyable rather than adding more to people’s already stacked plates. This could mean that you opt to host an event that requires very little from participants, such as a trivia event or a tasting event, in order to ensure that they don’t feel particularly pressured to prepare for the event in the way that they might for a cooking class, for example (though cooking classes that double as meal prep can be a good compromise there). Similarly, if you are hosting a gift exchange, you may want to consider choosing one that won’t require your participants to buy a specific gift for someone (like a White Elephant) or one that will have them only needing to think about buying a gift for one person (like a secret santa).

Scheduling will also be a concern since the holidays tend to be busy. One way to handle this is to hold all of your holiday-adjacent events at once, like a holiday party that is also a gift exchange, or by taking time out of the work day (when people will, presumably, be available) and hosting the event then. These two options each place some burden on the kind of events you will be able to hold (a 3 PM mixology course might not be the best idea, and it is hard to hold an in-person gift exchange alongside a virtual holiday escape room), but once those considerations are addressed, you’ll be able to better consider the kind of holiday event you are planning on running. 

Similar to issues of scheduling, you’ll also want to consider how long you want your event to last, especially if you are stacking events together alongside a holiday party or similar gathering (be it in-person or online). Some events can be either lengthened or shortened to suit your needs, and there really is no strict limit on how long a holiday party needs to last. For smaller groups, a virtual white elephant gift exchange can be done in under an hour, and a night of holiday games, supplemented by a few mixology lessons, can last a full evening if there are enough attendees who want to keep going. What is best for you will likely require you to gauge your team member’s interests and desires, but you should be aware that while this is something to consider, there are options for you regardless of what you end up choosing.

Cost is also something to consider, especially if gifts are being exchanged (not because of any insidious or potentially upsetting reason, but because you’ll need to consider what is expected of your participants). Some holiday events, like virtual trivia, escape rooms, or parties, cost your participants basically nothing except time and attention, making them great options for anyone looking to relax and not worry too much about the event until it happens. Events that involve gift exchanges can either be handled by the individuals (which means you should set a price ceiling if only to make it feel somewhat equitable) or it can be handled on the organizational side (at which point you’ll want to consider how much you think you should spend on gifts and what kinds of gifts you want to put under the tree). Some events, like holiday cooking and mixology events, can be made less cumbersome by having each participant receive a package of shippable ingredients in advance of the event, and virtual holiday events will sometimes have premium options that involve things like sending wine to your team members or upgrading the content of a tasting package.

Lastly, but importantly, if you are hosting an event during the end-of-year holidays, you may want to consider the social and religious makeup of your team and make sure that it is largely communicated to the host of your event. While there aren’t many explicitly Christmas, Hanukkah, or specifically denominational events (though there are some if that is what you are considering), you may still want to consider making sure that the event feels as inclusive as possible since you want to ensure that all of your team members feel respected and seen during the holiday season (and non-religious folks will likely appreciate it as well).

When choosing a theme or specific activities for your next holiday party, it’s important to compare the different event types to make sure they align with your goals. Here’s a quick guide on how holiday parties compare to other popular group events, such as cooking classes, arts and crafts workshops, and other festive activities:

• Holiday Cooking Classes: Cooking events provide an experience where participants can develop practical skills and create something they can enjoy at the end. Compared to holiday parties, cooking classes emphasize collaboration in a structured environment, but they may not offer the same level of spontaneous socializing as a casual holiday party.
• Arts and Crafts Events: Arts and crafts classes, like holiday wreath making or gingerbread house decorating, allow participants to get creative while socializing. These events are typically low-pressure and can easily be customized to suit various holidays. They are also inclusive for all team members, especially those who may not drink alcohol or prefer a quieter environment.
• Gift Exchanges: Gift exchanges, like White Elephant games or Secret Santa, add a fun, competitive edge to holiday parties. They tend to focus on interaction and light-hearted competition, which can energize a group in ways that cooking or crafting workshops may not. However, they lack the hands-on learning aspect offered by other events.
• Holiday Trivia Games: For teams that enjoy friendly competition, holiday-themed trivia games provide an interactive and engaging way to bond. Trivia events can be tailored to include questions about holiday traditions, pop culture, or the company itself. Compared to cooking or arts and crafts, trivia events are fast-paced, requiring minimal preparation, making them a great option for virtual or in-person holiday parties.
• Virtual Escape Rooms: These online team-building events involve solving puzzles and escaping from a themed "room." Compared to traditional holiday parties, virtual escape rooms are more structured and competitive, which can help teams bond through collaboration under pressure.

One of the best aspects of hosting a holiday party, class, or workshop is that they are so deeply customizable to the needs and interests of your group. This includes both the wide diversity of events available to host and the different aspects of those events that can be customized to make for the perfect virtual holiday party. You can, for example, add a karaoke or Christmas music segment to the beginning of a virtual holiday escape room, or you can build your event around a gift exchange. If you are hosting a crafting workshop, you might spring to have a bottle of wine sent to your attendees’ homes (or have wine supplied for them at the location).  You can blend events together by hosting them back to back to create a unique holiday experience, or you can explore the wide range of options to find the perfect holiday event for your team members.

Another advantage to hosting a holiday party in this manner is that it allows people to more freely filter in and out of the event as their schedules and lives allow for, which is always a pleasant bonus but is especially relevant during the otherwise hectic holiday season. If you host a gift exchange, a holiday cooking event, and a holiday trivia competition as part of your holiday party, that means that everyone will have a rough idea of when individual events are happening, and they can be sure to participate in the part of the evening that they are most interested in, or, if they want to do everything, they’ll have a solid idea of how long the event will last. By scheduling the holiday party in this way, you’ll be able to provide more structure and opportunities for your team members, and you’ll make everyone a bit more comfortable and relaxed when it comes to the unfortunate reality of scheduling events during the end of the year.

One of the best aspects of hosting a holiday party is that you are largely free to pick and choose from any number of different kinds of activities that you think your team members would enjoy. In addition to traditional holiday events, like gift exchanges, crafting parties, ugly sweater parties, or New Year’s celebrations, you can also host holiday-themed versions of popular team building activities, such as mixology courses, scavenger hunts, trivia contests, or other in-person or virtual workshops and games. This means that if you were looking to host a team-building event, you could have it pull double-duty as a holiday party. With only a few thematic shifts, a regular mixology workshop becomes a Halloween potions event, for example. This means that there are no limits to the kinds of events that you can hold around any holiday season.