I am so fortunate that I have a lot of family that lives in the Northern Virginia area. And our Christmas' have become a routine at this point. Very rarely we host Christmas at my parents house though—it's a little smaller and we have a big family! But this year we were hosting and I wanted to make it extra special. The best Katsaris Christmas party ever! So I teamed up with Mama Katz (my lovely mother) and we planned a "ski lodge/ski resort" themed Christmas party. This of course was inspired by Target's Bullseye seasonal section with all the ski lodge-esque decor. And I was not the only one with this idea 😅. I saw a lot of people online and even people I'm friends with have the same themed holiday parties.

I want to share everything we bought, everything we changed and of course what we wore so I broke it down in sections so you can understand my mindset when planning a party.

The Set-Up

As I mentioned our family home is a little bit smaller. My mom says our home is perfect for a summer party because we have a huge backyard, a fire pit, a pool, etc. But for winter parties (especially with the size of our family) it can be a little snug. So I went to old school 20-year old Michele who would throw parties at her house. I showed my mom that we would take EVERYTHING off the walls, out of the rooms and pack it into her bedroom so that way #1. Nothing got broken and #2. No one could go into her room. I explained that the less stuff that is in a room then the bigger it looks. As I started moving everything around she laughed at one point and said "but that's on a wall whose it going to bug?" But when I explained that one person hitting it could break it and watch how big the room gets when I take it out, she was shocked. She had no idea how much we used to do to have a party at the house and I think she was even proud? HA! So we moved everything out of the rooms, rearranged the furniture and planned where all the decor was going.

@micheleonelblog

we turned our house into a ski lodge for chrsitmas 🥺 •🎿⛷🏂 ##fyp ##christmasparty ##christmas ##skilodge ##skiresort ##christmasdecor

♬ We Wish You a Merry Christmas - Christmas

The Decor

As I mentioned, most of the decor came from Target, but my mom definitely came through with finding things on Amazon once she got into the theme! We got some mini ski lifts, ski lodge signs and my mom found a ski lift drapery which we hung up in the dinning room. We put those tea light Christmas houses on top of the window ledges with string light garland around each window and a mistletoe right in the living room. In the dinning room my mom has this gorgeous window sill that I knew that I wanted a lot of candles or else it's just wasted space. So we got a bunch of candle holders and taper candles and this was easily one of my favorite parts of the decor. My mom also found the perfect items for the bathroom. She found a window scene of a snowy mountain with deer as the shower curtain and a faux-fur white and grey rug. We topped off the bathroom with Christmas lights, candles and mini ski lodge items I found at Target! We also had a polaroid camera station set up for people to take photos with in front of the ski lift drapery! Which was a big hit cause those polaroid pics are so cute! And of course for the ~aesthetic~ we put the Yule log on the living room tv and Christmas jazz on the speakers.

Glitter Pine Cones | 50-ft Non-Lit Soft Garland | Tea Light Houses | LED Tealight Candles | Soft White Christmas String Lights | 2pc Ski Lift Decor | Faux Mistletoe Decor | 30pck Taper Candles | Ski Lodge Tabletop Signs | Snow Top Shower Curtain | Decor Prop Pack | Faux-Fur Rug | Ski Lift Drapery | Ski Lodge Sign | Tabletop Fireplace

Of course we had a FEAST, but we also had a fully stocked bar. The counter top was set up with mixers, liquor, and a rainbow array of wines. The mini ski lift held some mini bottles and we had a tray of non-alcoholic cocktail chocolates. The perfect mini touch that anyone can enjoy. Then I made a charcuterie board complete with a gingerbread shaped brie cheese. But the best part was the hot coco bar. My parents have this corner by the fridge that my dad has the Keurig set up, so we left that there and turned it into a hot coco station. We had all the toppings imaginable! Then my mom bought these tabletop fireplaces which she set up on the back deck and we completed with a tray of s'mores fixings including Christmas shaped marshmallows.

Chocolate Cocktails | Silver Christmas Plates | Daiquiri Cocktail Infusion Mix | Hot Coco Bombs | Chocolate Spoons | Christmas Marshmallows

The Games

I definitely saw these two games on TikTok and I knew that we would be able to pull this off! The first game was a "first to the box" kind of game. Everyone lines up and we play a version of Simon Says where I told everyone to touch a part of their body and then when I said "gift" the first one to grab the box in between them won that round and went on to the next round. We played until it dwindle down to the last two and that person won the actual "surprise gift." But because we had to mess with people just a little, it was actually a bag of coal with a note that said "don't be competitive, it's Christmas" 😂. The next game we played took a little longer and mixed white elephant with gambling. We used a lazy susan with 4 compartments and everyone spun. If it landed on two of the candy slots you collected the candy, if it landed on a folded up number you got the gift that correlated with that number (we had 21 gifts with multiple changes to win). If you didn't want to pick a new number you could steal someone else's gift (where white elephant gets into the mix) and you can quit at any time and keep your gift. BUT, if you got the Santa chocolate you had to turn everything in and start over. The last person standing won an Amazon gift card plus all the other gifts that were returned. This game took longer but it was really funny especially as people started stealing gifts. 

Box Game | Lazy Susan Game

The Fashion

Of course everyone had to come dressed properly for a ski lodge—even though it was 60 degrees out 😅. My mom got her cute velor track suit from Amazon, my niece was dressed up as one of Santa's helpers, my cousins dressed in Christmas plaid, my aunt brought a big winter coat, my SIL wore these fuzzy white pants, my dad wore his new "pappoús" sweater he got for Christmas and I rocked a velor Juicy Couture jumpsuit I got from JCPenny's on Black Friday complete with a Russian-inspired winter hat that I thrifted. 

Juicy Couture Jumpsuit | Navy + Leopard Velor Tracksuit | White Russian Hat (Similar)

Another yearly blog post I do where I share everything that I buy for everyone else for Christmas. I swear I wasn't a grinch and I spoiled my new niece this year. But I love sharing unique items I find just incase it's something you want too! Happy shopping!

Oliver got his first advent calendar last year and I had to keep the tradition going! He loves it and he knows what's happening every time I would grab the box and yell "Bean!" 😍 Watch the video on my YouTube (CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE). 

If I haven't explained this yet...I'm very close with my boyfriend's brothers. They've been my best friends since I was 8 years old and now we all hangout together. In fact one of the brothers, Gabe, is dating my best friend Rocio and the oldest brother, Javier, is dating a girl named Renee who we all love! The six of us hangout all the time and this year for Christmas we decided to do something a little different. Instead of exchanging gifts we decided to have a Christmas activity filled night. 

So each couple brought an activity for everyone to do and it was so much fun! It made for a very long night, but totally worth it. 

Follow me on TikTok @micheleonelblog to see some behind the scenes videos!

Activity #1: Gingerbread Cookies

Each person got a Christmas inspired image and had to make a gingerbread cookie to look just like our image. It started out great, but after the cookie actually baked and we decorated it—it was a hilariously horrible disaster 😂. 

Activity #2: Wood Burning

The next activity was wood burning! I've never done this before and honestly it's kind of hard 😅. But I made little houses to represent a human and a dog house. Then we could paint our little houses or gingerbread men. This was so hard but so much fun. I thin Javi's was the best!

Activity #3: Sip & Paint

I knew I wanted to do a sip and paint for activity night, but the holiday paint options weren't all that. Good thing were all a fan of Disney and The Nightmare Before Christmas so that was our image selection! Except it was super hard!! Everyone was struggling 😂, but I still think a lot of our paintings turned out really good!