Breaking Tradition: Holiday Party Themes That Defy the Norm

by | Dec 24, 2023 | Extraordinary Entertainment | 0 comments

Inspiration to Elevate Your Winter Soiree with Inventive Themes. After emerging from a 3 week holiday party marathon, I’ve got some holiday party theme tales to share that’ll jazz up your event-planning playbook. 
 
Holiday Party - People wearing a santa cap
Let’s kick things off on the far left of our theme creativity spectrum—the cozy corner of predictability. These are the classics, the tried-and-true themes that play it safe, ensuring you won’t ruffle any tinsel feathers. 

CLASSICAL THEMES

Generic Holiday theme

Reds & greens & a splash of silver or gold. Christmas iconography, shying away from religious symbols. Under this banner still sits the twists such as the (both beloved & despised) ugly sweater theme.

Christmas Costumed Characters
Winterwonderland Themed costumed characters

Winter Wonderland

Now we come to a fun common choice because it screams winter without pointing to any religious holiday at all. It can be done vintage, modern, or super glam & does capture a pristine side of the fantasy of Winter.
Now a little over to the right on our spectrum you get holiday party themes that you have certainly come across before, but might not expect for a holiday party, per se.  Candyland… Speakeasy… Masquerade… Jungle…

Jungle All the Way

 
 

Special mention goes to the “Jungle” theme, particularly notable at last week’s Sacramento Kings holiday party. The clever twist, “Jungle all the Way,” seamlessly blended a nod to the season with the offbeat theme, showcasing a delightful play on words by merging two distinct elements into a unique theme.… which leads us nicely into the hybrid themes, or mashups…  

Jungle Themed Costume Characters
Infographic Table on Holiday themes

MASHUP THEMES

Now warming up creatively, we enter more unexpected territory with mashup themes. Catalyst Arts provided entertainment for two parties of this category this year & both made for some innovative experiments.

Barbary Coast meets Cyberpunk/Futuristic

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Nightmare before Christmas

Now this sounds like a single holiday party theme since there is a movie behind it. But really it is a mashup of 2 holidays. So when a longtime client said he wanted to go big on this theme for his annual holiday party… I had many ideas!

This grand party with over 30 performers was peaked with a dance battle between Halloween & Christmas. This created a spectacle with narrative & was a blast to create & to witness.

(Rick Herns provided all decor & some of the performers & keep an eye out on our Instagram for the battle reel!)

Nightmare Before Christmas Holiday Theme Costumed Characters

RUSSIAN DOLL THEMES 

This is an entirely just made up term that helps me explain an overarching theme that allows many themes to nest underneath it. A theme that grants you themes within themes.

A theme like Fantasy or Fairytales would qualify.
In the case of what I personally witnessed this year, that theme was Broadway Shows.
This event, for another tech titan included a Lion King entrance, a Grease photo zone, a flying witch, Phantom of the Opera themed aerialists, & a Moulin Rouge zone upstairs with magician & lip readings. That is 5 themes for the (admittedly probably very expensive) price of 1.
Creative Director- Genevieve Jae

Fire Dancers for Holiday Party
Unfortunately, I have no good examples for the red hot utterly new part of our spectrum. This is a hard place to land.

How about you? Did you attend, see, or create any Holiday Party Themes that you think fall in this utterly creative side of the spectrum? 

If so, let me know by replying here or messaging me on 

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