Six budget tips to help you host a festive dinner party at home for less
PARTY season is here – but it needn’t cost you a fortune.
Avoid splurging cash out on the town and host at home instead.
These cheap tricks will give you a dinner party to remember . . .
D.I.Y DECS: Make paper chains from old wrapping paper and head to instructables.com to learn how to make the perfect winter snowflake designs to hang from the ceiling.
Buy budget winter garlands from Poundland for £1 and drape over banisters, on top of sideboards or countertops.
TABLE TREATS: Take a winter walk and pick up foliage, twigs and pine cones and arrange them on your table.
Then recycle and reuse old jam jars before popping tea lights into them to make DIY votive candles and add to the arrangement.
Alternatively, a spare set of Christmas lights woven around the foliage will look amazing.
DINNER DISCOVERY: Turn your Christmas party into a pot-luck dinner.
Ask each guest to bring a dish to share and coordinate by assigning categories — such as appetizers, mains, sides and desserts — so every course is covered.
If hosting a buffet, cut out little squares of wrapping paper and leave on the side with a marker pen, so guests can handwrite the name of their dish and put it with their offering.
BYOB: Encourage guests to bring their favourite drinks to share.
Frozen orange slices, frozen berries and rosemary sprigs can help add a festive feel to glasses.
GAME ON: Classic games like charades and Pictionary require minimal expense, or divide your guests into teams and set up a game based on beer pong.
Arrange paper cups at each end of a table and add a small chocolate, clementine or treat in each cup.
Each team has to try and throw a ping-pong ball into the cups from the other end of the table — the team with the best treat haul at the end, wins.
FESTIVE FEELS: Play a Christmas movie on your TV, or on a SmartTV bring up a crackling log fire by visiting youtube.com/ fireplace 4k.
It creates a cosy atmosphere.
- All prices on page correct at time of going to press. Deals and offers subject to availability.
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