Christmas Movie Party

“Merry Christmas, movie house! Merry Christmas, Emporium! Merry Christmas, you wonderful old Building and Loan!” — George Bailey (James Stewart)

It’s a Wonderful Life, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Home Alone, Elf and A Christmas Story are just a few of the most iconic Christmas Movies. Some of my best memories of the holidays revolve around spending time with family and friends, while watching some of these classics!

Make An Evening Out of it!

“We’re kicking off our fun old-fashion family Christmas by heading out into the country in the old front-wheel-drive sleigh to embrace the frosty majesty of the winter landscape and select that most important of Christmas symbols.” — Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase)

Do you have family in town for the holidays and are continually looking for activities to bring everyone together and off of their devices? Do you have kids and are looking for ways to entertain them during the winter break or college kids that are home for the holidays that want to get together with their friends? Having a Christmas movie night is the perfect solution to all of the hustle and bustle that goes on during the holidays.

Snacks!

Yukon Cornelius (Larry D. Mann): This fog’s as thick as peanut butter!
Hermey (Paul Soles): You mean pea soup.
Yukon Cornelius: You eat what you like, and I’ll eat what I like!

Movies and popcorn go together like peanut butter and jelly, hot chocolate and marshmallows, Bert and Ernie, and so on. I love pairing popcorn with red licorice, it’s definitely my movie time go-to snack! Here are some other tasty suggestions to add to the mix:

Red and Green Jellybeans
Seasonal m&m’s
Starburst
Skittles
Mike and Ike’s Merry Mix
Trolli Sour Bite Trees.

If you want to up the ante for more mature pallets, you can have different flavored popcorn and unique combinations. Taste of Home has some tasty recipes, some of which are:

Cheddar
White Cheddar
Caramel
Buffalo Ranch

Kids of all ages enjoy chocolate covered toffee. Anytime Toffee has a fabulous selection of flavors perfect for any holiday gathering. Their tried and true flavors are:

Milk Chocolate
Dark Chocolate
Salted Milk Chocolate (my favorite) and
Salted Dark Chocolate.

My favorite is the salted milk chocolate, and son of a nutcracker, it’s so yummy! Whether you’re a fan of savory or sweet, there endless options for your popcorn table. That being said, “we elves try to stick to the four main food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corns and syrup.” Buddy the Elf (Will Ferrell)

Create a Fun Popcorn Station

“First we’ll make snow angels for two hours, then we’ll go ice skating, then we’ll eat a whole roll of Tollhouse Cookie-dough as fast as we can, and then we’ll snuggle.” — Buddy the Elf (Will Ferrell)

I live for entertaining and the opportunity to create a fun display, shocker! Over the years, I have curated a wide range of serving pieces and decorating accessories. Most of my serving pieces are neutral: white, glass or galvanized steel. As you can see from the pictures, I took my neutral pieces and customized them for the Popcorn Station.

Something that I do all the time is take my glass apothecary jars or cylinder vases and wrap a colorful ribbon around it. The trick to keeping the ribbon in place is a dab of glue from my hot glue gun (don’t worry, there is very little risk of shooting your eye out with this gun). The beauty is that it peels right off when you are done. In addition to the ribbons, I like to add colorful treats that coordinate with the party’s theme. Obviously, I’m going with the red and green since it’s a Christmas Movie party.

Here are some other elements that I added to the popcorn table:

Paint and repurpose: I took a couple of mini-galvanized steel buckets and coated them with some green craft paint that I had on hand. Green obviously goes with the current theme, but since green tends to be an accent that I often use, I will be able to use them again.
Embellishments: This Anthropologie inspired felt garland (click here for tutorial) provides the perfect amount of color, texture and whimsy for the popcorn station.
Paper bags for the popcorn: You can also add a box of crayons or markers to personalize and decorate the bags. This would be especially fun for little kids!