Christmas Party Restaurants for Hire in Sydney

Christmas is a time for family and friends, of reflecting on the past year and nurturing hope for the future. Christmas dinner is a great occasion to catch up with those who have stayed by your side throughout the year. But it can also be pretty overwhelming to think about all the tasks associated with  throwing a good get-together over dinner, so if you're looking for a little help, here are some tips to make your Christmas dinner party run smoothly:

• Keep a budget and stick to it - Christmas time tends to get expensive when you add up all the costs for food and alcohol along with all the gifts required for every friend and family member. The easiest way to keep track of your spending and make sure you don’t spend way too much money is by setting up a Christmas budget and sticking to it. If there’s one big thing you would like to spend money on this season, plan everything else around it.

• Prepare in advance - To avoid frantically running around, forgetting crucial details, and finally lying down on the couch barely able to move from all the stress, start planning your Christmas events well in advance. This way you will be able to address each task when needed and follow your budget as well. This is especially important when booking a venue. Doing it early means you can choose the one that you like, and not just try to sort something out with the ones that are left. You may also try and negotiate early bird discounts!

• Send out invitations - December can get very busy for some people. With the year closing, work getting busy, friends wanting to meet up, and family trying to stick to their traditions, sending invitations a week prior to your dinner may result in nobody showing up. If you send the invitations ahead of time, your guests will be able to fit your dinner in their calendars, and you will know who is planning to show up.

• Decorate accordingly - The festive season calls for special decorations. Even if Australia’s Christmas calls for more sea and beach decorations, you don’t have to skip the Christmas tree, wreaths or peppermint candies. Candles can be electrical, to avoid the extra heat, and hot cocoa can be easily switched for iced drinks.

If you want to make this coming Christmas even more special than the last, try out some of these ideas to make your Christmas dinner even more interesting:

• Gift Exchange - Cultivate the lovable Christmas tradition of giving gifts at your dinner as well. You can either organise a Secret Santa, where guests buy gifts for a specific person (selected previously in secret), or each person brings a wrapped gift to be won during various games. Before the dinner, always remember to agree on how much money to spend on the gifts!

• Murder Mystery - Discover the Agatha Christie in you and organise a murder mystery with your guests. It’s a fun game that can be played over dinner, and continue through the evening. You can write down the rules in the invitations, so the game can start right as the guests arrive.

• Game Night - Once you eat all the turkey, ham, Christmas pudding, and the Christmas queen herself, the Pavlova, why not continue the festivities  with some games? You can either play board games or opt for more festive-themed games like Christmas bingo. If you want to follow the seasonal spirit, prepare small gifts for the winners of each game.

• Christmas Food Workshops - Before you sit down to the dinner, why not learn how to make it first? A food workshop is a fun activity that brings people together not only over food but over the joint efforts and a single goal. You can either try preparing traditional Christmas food or go for something unusual, like making Christmas food from around the world.

• Let’s Go Party, Barbie - BBQ, or barbie, as Aussies call it, is a unique Australian Christmas tradition. With the festive season falling in the middle of the summer, BBQ is a great option for a Christmas dinner. Just don’t forget to grill the Christmas classic - the prawns.

• Karaoke by Candlelight - What is Christmas dinner without the carol singing that follows it? You can add a modern twist to the traditional carol singing, and add a bunch of beloved Christmas songs to the list. Karaoke is a great way to get everyone, from the youngest to the oldest, involved in the activities.

• Ugly Christmas T-shirt Competition - With Australia’s Christmas falling in the middle of summer an Ugly Christmas Sweater Competition might not be the best option. But why not organise one for t-shirts? That may be a nice addition to a traditional Christmas dinner. It’s an especially good idea for a corporate dinner, allowing everyone to drop the usual formal attire. This way your office dinner will get more relaxed, making it a nice team-bonding event. Don’t forget to prepare a prize for the winner!