Holiday Party Panic: The Theme

Deciding to throw a holiday party is stressful. The plethora of choices to be made involving food, decoration and whom to invite (or not) is mind boggling. The tension only grows if these decisions are made independent of one another. Without proper planing one ends up with either the incongruous mix of elements, or, worse, a hopelessly generic hodgepodge. To avoid an unmemorable holiday happening, start with a theme and let the other decisions spin out from there.

First off, take your assemblage of Martha Stewart Living magazines, gather them together in a well defined pile, wrap twine around them, and walk them to recycling pile. Next, place your cable remote in your hand and put a parental block on The Food Network, The Style Channel, and, especially, Discovery Home Network; these channels will guide you gently along the path to plain (see image at right), and frankly, you are better than that.

With these distractions out of the way, now remove all unnecessary clothing, dim the lights and close the eyes. Consider what is on your mind and what you and your friends have in common. Explore thoughts of what has made you laugh in the past year. Write down all of these thoughts, and, with a thick red marker, write a large "X" through the page. The ideas you have just written down simply are not surprising enough. Your party must be epic and unforgettable.

At this point you have eliminated all distractions and can begin the process of word association needed to arrive at your theme. Perhaps your process could be as such: "Iraq. Troops. USO. Performers. Strippers. Britney. Federletus." BOOM! You arrive at your theme: "Preston's First XMas!" Suddenly your food and decor choices are abundant, vivid, and fun. But maybe you're "classy" and wanting to try for something else. "Iraq. Bush. George. Jeb. Noelle. Xanax. Laura. Eyes of Laura Mars." BOOM: "Ghosts of Xmas Future!" Again, your futurist theme will make the related decisions a breeze.

The Offender household in this year having our sixth annual tree-trimming brunch. The great thing about a tree-trimming is that you have a tree that is filled with a variety of ornaments from your friends. After several years, we can still remember each ornament and from whom we received it. Using the process above (thus explaining the clothing removal step), themes have varied from year to year. Viva Las XMas featured playing cards and poker chips mixed into the decor with a Vegas-style buffet. A Very Stepford XMas (before that Nicole Kidman nightmare, thank you) was frilly and femme with an overkill of casseroles. Last year's Ho' Ho' Holiday was a sextravaganza in decor and naughty nibbles.

This year brought deep reflection of our origins: Mister Offender's Mexican heritage combined with my own Whitetrashian, "taco" and "cracker". Finding a theme that touched upon both took us to a key moment in 1982 when Dutch singer Taco released his remake of Irving Berlin's "Puttin' on the Ritz". Add to this the over 100 recipes available at the Ritz cracker website for food and the simply the idea of 'the Ritz' for decor and dress. Thus was born "Puttin' on the RitzMas," the 2005 edition of our annual event.

Whether your party follows a similar method of construction or the more traditional route, don't be afraid of pushing boundries and stretching beyond the traditionally defined themes that surround the holiday season. Pink and silver are just as festive as red and green, if not more so. There is no requirement to serve the traditional yams and turkey, and your guests have probably had their fill of these already at all of those 'other' parties. The key to making your party memorable is to personalize. If your guests leave with just one thought, let it be this one: "Wow. That #$@#$ is out of their mind."