December 19th, 2009 by admin

It’s easy to be the hostess or the host with the most this holiday season and also be frugal. All you need are the following key strategies that will help you magically turn a little money into a great Christmas party:

Tip #1: Don’t pay for the party invites

There is a huge selection of Christmas dinner invitations that can be downloaded on the Web. All you have to do is find the message, size and look you prefer, paste the artwork into a Word document or other word processing program and print it. If you choose the artwork well, the end results should exceed your expectations.

Tip #2: Create your own decorations

There are many holiday decorations that can be created at home just using vintage clip art images available on the Web. These can be printed, cut out and placed all over the house, including being sprinkled in flower arrangements or used as menu cards. If you want a little fancier appearance, try using a little glitter glue to make them sparkle.

Tip #3: Serve food that makes an impression

When doing your party planning, look for free holiday recipes that aren’t expensive to make but look like they cost a fortune. A good example would be to serve dip in a sourdough bread bowl, or filling puff pastry cups with imitation crab dip you can get at a deli or make yourself or any filling you like.

Tip #4: Provide lots of great holiday music

Holiday music is soothing and is a terrific party mood-setter. You can always use holiday CDs, of course, but if you have live music, you’ll create an occasion your guests will never forget. But you don’t have to have The London Philharmonic Orchestra perform to have the entertainment be special. If you don’t know of musicians who will work free just to get the exposure, inquire at a local university’s music department. There may be musicians who will work just for the experience and some free food.

There are undoubtedly other strategies you can come up with to stretch your holiday entertaining budget. Just be sure to keep your guests’ ultimate experience in the forefront and don’t let saving money make the party seem cheap. If you maintain a certain sense of class about the occasion, no one will even know the event was done on a shoestring.