How to Throw a Virtual Holiday Party

Celebrate the holiday season with your loved ones, no matter where you are!

These ideas will show you how to have the best virtual holiday party!

Let’s embrace the changes 2020 has brought and party on! Our tips for How to Throw a Virtual Holiday Party will make for easy hosting and a successful time with friends and family.

December is well underway and with that comes party season! Of course, it being 2020, that means something totally different than it has in years past. To keep yourself from feeling Yuletide Blues, consider these tips for how to throw a virtual holiday party for your loved ones!

A virtual holiday party can be as simple or elaborate as you want it to be. It can just be drinks and chatting with friends, or you can assemble prizes, games, and even decorations and dress-up! Follow our steps for a party to remember.

Invitations & Reminders

Don't forget to send invites and reminders for your virtual holiday party.

Make sure you send invites as soon as you have a date and time chosen. It’s also a good idea to send reminders so guests don’t forget! An email a day or two beforehand is a really helpful reminder, and even a text the day of if you’re able. Make sure all of the links, quizzes, and games are queued up and everything is working on the day of.

How to Throw a Virtual Holiday Party: Play Games!

Play games to break the ice during your virtual holiday get together!

This is where you can get really creative! There are so many ways to incorporate games into a holiday party.

  • You could create a Jeopardy board in a PowerPoint that gets shared.
  • Use QuizUp or Kahoot to find a themed quiz game that everyone will be interested in.
  • Play Words With Friends, which is easy to sign up for through Facebook and feels a bit like Scrabble!
  • For groups that may not be all acquainted, try some ‘get to know you’ games! Do Two Truths and a Lie, or look up icebreaker questions, have everyone send you answers, and then let the group guess who answered what!
  • CardzMania has tons of options for classic card games to play as a group.

You can offer prizes that are easy to email, like gift cards to Amazon, Target, or Starbucks. You could even have more specific prizes pulled up in an Amazon cart and then order them for the winner in real time!

Food for a Virtual Holiday Party

Enjoy delicious food and drink, virtually with your friends!

Again, this can be as simple or elaborate as you want it to be! If you really want to spoil your participants, you can send food to their houses using Doordash or Grubhub. Another option is to simply share a recipe for Classic Hot Chocolate or Chocolate Peppermint Cookies for guests to make and enjoy in their own homes. Of course, you can always just encourage everyone to come with drink glasses topped off too. Cheers!

Decorations and Dressing Up

Have an ugly Christmas sweater competiton for your virtual party!

Encourage decorations and dressing up! Let guests know they’ll each have a chance to be spotlighted, so they can set up next to their Christmas tree, wear an ugly sweater, or string up some lights and paper snowflakes behind their computer. Make it a competition and let your guests vote on a winner!

The Best Software for a Virtual Holiday Party

Celebrate the holidays with your loved ones, no matter where you are!

Of course, you’re going to need a way to connect! There are a couple options for virtual holiday parties.

  • Zoom allows you to have up to 100 guests with a 40-minute time limit. This can be great for keeping your party organized and in a tight time frame!
  • Skype lets up to 50 people into one chat without a time limit, so it’s just right for smaller groups.

Finally, remember that it’s okay to feel a little bummed that this year looks so different than other years. You aren’t alone in feeling disappointment and sadness at the loss of normalcy this December! We hope these tips for how to throw a virtual holiday party help you feel a little less alone and bring a sense of togetherness this holiday season.

This post may include affiliate links.

Bran Haynes

Brandilyn Haynes is a copywriter based in Mesa, AZ. She has an MFA in Writing from Lindenwood University and worked as an English professor before switching gears to freelance copywriting. Bran loves baking, hiking, and spending time with her husband and two sons in the Arizona desert.

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