The traditional red and green colors of Christmas decorations bring out the festive mood of Christmas in July. Christmas tree, Poinsettias, mistletoe, holly and pinecones are all plants that are part of Christmas traditions. They are a lovely, verdant sight to behold and capable of emitting a soothing fragrance throughout a home. Here are some decoration tips for celebrating Christmas in July with elan!
Its is surely a good idea to involve all the members of the family to relive the Christmas spirit in July. With this easy to make candy chain to start with. Guide your kids to prepare one for every member of the family.
Start with two wrapped candies (striped starlight mints) and using ribbon.
Tie a twisted plastic end of one to an end of the second mint. Continue until your chain has enough candies for everyone around. Hang your garlands from the mantel or from doorknobs. Each day, untie and eat one piece of candy to celebrate the Christmas season in July.
With green mint boughs and sour ball lights, this tabletop tree is a great treat for kids to decorate and for holiday guests, who can harvest goodies from its branches.
Materials :
Double-sided foam tape
Decorative candle stand
Three 10-ounce bags of individually wrapped green striped mints
balls or jawbreakers
Small bag of individually wrapped multicolored sour
Yellow paper
Yellow lollipop
9- by 4-inch Styrofoam cones (sold in most craft stores)
Time needed: Under 1 Hour
Apply strips of double-sided foam tape to the Styrofoam cone, as shown at left, until virtually the entire surface is covered.
Now your child can attach the wrapped mints to the exposed tape, starting with one row around the bottom and working his way up. For the best coverage and color, he should stick each mint to the tree by the rounded edge rather than with the flat surface facing out. Encourage him to mix in a few multicolored sour ball or jawbreaker lights as he goes.
For a tree topper, cut a star out of the yellow paper, tape the lollipop to it, and then push the lollipop stick straight down into the cone. Finally, set the tree on the decorative candle stand.
Large pots with floating candles and flowers and eye catching painting will add on to the mood.
Make the exterior of your home look just as festive and inviting as the interior with holiday lights and decorations. Display greenery for daytime interest and string up lights for the evenings. On special occasions, set out luminaries to welcome your guests.
Add sparkle to any tabletop with metallic trees dripping in jewels. Topped with a brilliant star, these shining trees are stunning when grouped together in various sizes.
What You Need:
Spring into holiday decorating
Bottle with narrow neck
Armature wire approximately 45 inches long
Tracing paper
Pencil
38-gauge gold and silver aluminum
Wire cutters
Scissors
Hot-glue gun and hot-glue sticks
Rhinestones and gems
Instructions:
Find a bottle with a narrow neck that tapers to a wider bottom. It should have a cone shape to coil around. Some soft drink bottles should work. Catsup, salad dressing, and wine bottles also work well. Holding the bottle firmly, wrap the wire around the bottle, beginning on the top and winding downward. Keep the wire taut, and each revolution around the bottle should be wound tightly against the next.
When the piece of wire is completely wound, remove from bottle. Lift the wire upward off the narrow end. Adjust the coil to desired shape. You can also experiment with different bottles and a variety of wire lengths to create trees tall and thin, short and plump, leaning or perfectly straight. Point the top end of the wire upward to hold the star.
Trace star patterns. Draw shapes onto aluminum using a sharp pointed pencil. Cut out star shapes from aluminum using scissors. Cut tiny slits on the inside points of the large star.
Lay the small star centered on top of the large star. Fold in the edges of the back star over to the front star. Leave an opening and slip onto the top of the tree. Use a spot of hot glue to hold in place.
Add gems to the tree. Place small random dots of hot glue on the wire. Immediately put the gems on the glue. Place one at the bottom end of the coil and add gems to each point of the star.
Create a sparkling and delicate centerpiece in no time at all. If you don't have an antique pedestal dish, use any pretty footed dish as the base for this bright and shining holiday display.
What You Need:
Pillar candle
Pedestal dish
20 or more small glass ornaments
Mirror (optional)
Instructions:
1. Place candle in dish.
2. Gently arrange ornaments around the candle until desired look is achieved.
3. Optional: For a warm reflected glow, place the dish in front of a mirror.
Creative ways to welcome Christmas in July
Create a party theme that should evoke a particular image or effect. Go unconventional. Make your own unique style statement.
Celebrating a fiesta with a summer Christmas theme can be festive, great fun and spirited. So get set to brighten up this summer with an unforgettable Christmas in July party! Plan the fiesta carnival for all ages with easy crafts, Games and cool snacks that will leave everyone feeling merry.
Start with a warm invitation on a holiday paper ,handwrite the invitation with mentioning the theme. Fold it and tie on candy canes with a cute bow, (one for each family member you’re inviting) and hand-deliver the package to your guests for special attention to your friends and family.
To set the fiesta mood :
Deck your halls with traditional Christmas embellishments, in addition to your decorated Christmas tree, Sprigs of holly and mistletoe on stairways, railings and in doorways.
Christmas lights hung around windows inside your home to add brightness and warmth.
Jingle bells add a wonderful holiday sound when placed around door handles, kitchen cabinet knobs and tied to the ends of serving pieces. Wreaths hung on doors and walls are great Christmas decorations.
Tip: For a sweet wreath everyone will love, tie a variety of hard candies in their wrappers to a ready-made wreath. Attach a pair of scissors to the wreath with long string so that when guests pass by, they can snip off a sweet whenever they want.
To keep younger guests busy at your carnival, set up an area named 'Santa’s fun shop'. This is where kids can hang around and have their share of fun by shopping for goodies. Arrange for fake currency for them to use.
On a card table covered with a bright red plastic tablecloth, set out bowls of stringables – lifesavers, tiny pretzels, cereals with a whole in the middle and gummy rings - anything edible that can be strung. Include heavy-duty thread and let the kids dig into the bowls and string garland necklaces. They will love wearing them and taking a bite whenever they cant resist anymore.
A delicious Christmas tree
A Christmas fiesta must have fun food to spice up the ordinary presentation. Start with a 12-inch, green Styrofoam cone and use toothpicks to attach vegetables like broccoli, cucumbers, olives, cherry tomatoes, cauliflower and red and yellow peppers. Arrange the vegetables in a pattern, creating an Christmas tree. Top the tree with a yellow star cut from your favorite cheese, and serve with your best vegetable or cheese dip.
Cheese Ball Snowman
Fashion two cheese balls, from two 8-ounce packages of cream cheese, for the head and body. Now decorate! Use raisins for his eyes, mouth and buttons; broken pretzels for his arms; fruit leather for his scarf, and a piece of carrot for his nose. Top his head with a hat made from one large round cracker on the bottom, and three smaller ones stacked on top. Serve with crackers and mini bagels.
Games
Fill a jar with red and green jelly beans, for a last minute treat. Decorate the jar with pretty holiday ribbon. Ask each guest to guess how many jelly beans are in the jar by writing their name and best estimate on a piece of paper. At the end of the party, read the guesses and announce the correct number. The person closest wins the jar.
There are many more fun activities you could include in a Christmas FUN FIESTA carnival. Use your imagination and think up some of your own fun. It is a festive and jolly way to spread Christmas cheer.
In order to share a little holiday cheer with friends who are so dear, a Christmas luncheon is an ideal way to spend the Christmas in July season. The most important element of the luncheon is a beautifully set table. Start with a lovely embroidered tablecloth and white placemats with silver satin around the edges with matching silver cuttlery, glasswares, Off-white plates, napkins that match the placemats to complete the setting. Include a flower arrangement in a beautiful vase or flower pot made from your favorite flowers.
Write each guests name on cardstock, punch a hole in the corner, and tie it around the bottom of the urn with a pretty satin ribbon. On each friend’s plate leave pretty poppers filled with tiny gifts. Now that your table is complete, for the rest of the how about the rest of the house? I try to stick with the holiday colors of red, green, yellow, gold and silver. Evergreen garlands are draped over the mantel and doorways. An abundance of candles are lit around the house (and bathroom – it’s nice to enter a restroom with the glow of candles.) I add fragrance to the house by simmering cinnamon sticks and cloves in a pot of apple cider on the stove. The entryway, bathroom, coffee table, and select corners are adorned with containers of poinsettias. And I hang silver stars with iridescent marbles in the center from the kitchen fan and on doorknobs.
The kitchen is where I set up an appealing buffet. I put another cranberry organza tablecloth on the kitchen table. Here, guests can help themselves to holiday punch, coffee, or champagne (with orange juice if they’d like.) On my kitchen counter I lay a silver linen tablecloth and scrunch it up to add a relaxed but dressed look, on which I put the plates of food. Lunch includes a cranberry and toasted almond green salad, chicken, (I try to change the kind every year) quiche, (again different each year) and homemade bread (it might be corn or banana or garlic or…)
After we’ve eaten at the table and talked for a while, I clear the plates and serve dessert. If it’s cool out I’ll serve hot chocolate. If not, more juice or champagne is in order. I put a variety of small desserts on a tray and ask each guest to help herself as I go around the table. The tray includes fresh baked cookies, muffins, fruit tarts and brownies. The conversation continues until we are all talked out and caught up with each other’s lives.
Friendship needs to be nurtured and a holiday luncheon is a great way to thank your girlfriends for their companionship. They’ve enjoyed the lunch, love their party favors and look forward to getting together again the next year.
Card Game
The idea is to have 2 decks of cards, pass out one deck of cards to everyone at the party circling around giving everyone one at a time until all the cards are gone. Hopefully everyone will come out with an even number of cards.. Have a bunch of nice little gifts wrapped 5 or 10 depending on the amount of guests.. Put the gifts in the center of the room.
Then with the second Deck of Cards have someone call out each card, the person that has the card that is called gets up and picks a prize, when all the prizes are taken from the table, everyone can steal the gifts from each other, when the whole deck has been called out the people with the prizes on their laps keep them.
This game is fun because everyone likes to pick a certain prize that looks interesting and they try to steal it back and forth and other people try not to let you remember they have a prize, but of course they have to keep them in the open.... (This game works for birthdays too.)
To celebrate the opening of our new warehouse our company threw a Christmas party for all our employees. The theme was Christmas Under the Sea and it was held in the new warehouse. I wondered how the corporate party coordinator would be able to make it look more than a decorated warehouse, but the night of the party, I was amazed by what I saw.
My first indication this was a classy party was the valet waiting to take my car when I drove into the parking lot. The first thing I saw when I came through the door was bunches of cloth seaweed. Strips of green cloth had been twisted together into long pieces stretching from the ceiling to the floor, around the perimeter of the party area. Leaves of sheer iridescent, green cloth had been tied around the seaweed “stems”.
I couldn’t tell you where the giant coral, giant clam and ship wreck props came from, but I bet it must have been rented from of some theater prop warehouse; they really made the Under Sea theme come alive.
A pianist on a grand piano near the 12-foot Christmas tree was playing Christmas music. The tree was decorated with faux seaweed and seashell garland with realistic sea life ornaments.
Each table was covered with pastel linens and the matching chair covers were tied with iridescent pink, green, peach and purple organza ribbon bows. The centerpieces looked like pieces of coral reef. Realistic plastic sea creatures and shells were glued onto the colorful fake coral.
A dinner buffet took up a row of tables to one side of the dining area. The buffet had so many choices: Prime rib, marinated chicken breasts, turkey, baked fish, mashed potatoes, yams, mixed steamed vegetables, and buttered rolls. It was so hard to decide; everything looked so good. An ice sculpture of a pair of leaping dolphins decorated the space on the table between the dinner buffet and the dessert buffet. There were so many kinds of dessert: Cakes, pies, éclairs, Bavarians, cheesecake, and tarts; it looked like the caterer had cleaned out the bakery.
The bar was decorated like a giant clam and served Corona beer and Sebastiani wine to the guests. During dinner, the pianist played Christmas music, but I noticed a band was setting up on the stage in front of the Christmas tree.
After dinner, the Calypso band started playing festive island music and guests began dancing. A photographer strolled among the guests capturing candid shots of the guests enjoying themselves. I danced for a while then chatted with friends until late. It was a great party.
Party games
There are also some great Christmas games you can play! Play some fun music while your friends stand in line waiting to bend backwards low enough to fit under the limbo stick (broom handle, yardstick, etc.). In order to win, the limbo master must not touch the stick or fall on the floor while limbo-ing under the stick (which is usually held by 2 people). You can decorate your limbo stick with red and green ribbon available at your local craft store.
Christmas in July party can be equally fun with innovative ideas and planning. We will have all the reasons to enjoy our summer and chill out with no inhibitions. Here are some party tips that will make you a perfect host or hostess.
1. Invite with care : There are lots of fun ways to invite friends and family to your July at Christmas party. If you are hand delivering your invitations, tie the party information onto a red and green shovel and bucket! Or write it on a red and green inner tube (this you can deflate and send in the mail). You can also find summer barbecue invitations at a discount store and use those, or a fabulous custom caricature of yourself dressed as Santa, lying on the beach! Ask your guests to come in sundresses, shorts and t-shirts. And it's OK to wear white since this is Christmas in July. You can either add Santa hats and sunglasses with the invitations or give them out as your guests enter the party.
2. The more the merrier : As a rule, a minimum of eight people keeps the conversations going easily in a party. Ensure that you invite people who get along well to avoid any tension that can spoil the party.
3. Be prepared : Decorations should be a mix of a summer bash and a traditional Christmas! Use red and white checkered tablecloths, maybe a few citronella candles. Beach balls, sand castles, buckets as vases with fresh tropical flowers and shovel, as well as poinsettias, snowflake confetti, and holiday wire garlands. Display large beach umbrellas, beach chairs, beach balls, and plastic buckets around the room or hanging from the ceiling (places where your guests can't trip over them).
4. Menu : Stick to a traditional Christmas meal for this one. It may be July at your house, but it's still a Christmas party!
Food
As a continuation to our last point, feed your guests well: your menu should depend on the formality or the informality of the get together. For a formal dinner you would want to serve a well rounded Christmas meal. For a cocktail party you would want to focus on finger foods and drinks. For more than 10 people, a buffet should be in order avoid dishes that call for elaborate serving techniques or last minute preparation.
Always prepare extra food.
Select your food with care-make your menu interesting ,imaginative and delicious! Never say no to an offer from a guest to bring along a dish with them. It will make them feel special. Have a balanced menu on the platter, rich dense and highly flavoured foods with lots of fresh salads and steamed or hand tossed with light vegetable oil . Offer enough assortments. Serve safe food. Ensure that the party doesn't turn into a gastrointestinal nightmare!
Drinks and Beverage
Offer drinks responsibly. Stock a full bar but limit the choice on an array of light cocktails and mocktails, depending on the time of the day and weather, when the party is hosted keep plenty of ice handy, low calorie, high moisture content foods such as raw vegetable strips and light dips with cheese and meat. They are digested slowly and slow down the alcohol absorption. Also avoid salty food. While preparing an alcoholic punch, use a non carbonated base, like fruit punch.
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