Color Me Cookies Christmas Party

Who doesn’t love Christmas – i mean come on, red lips on the reg, serious holiday eats and all of those parties!!! What’s not to love? On of my favorite parts of this season is celebrating traditions – some old, some new and all super fun! Today I’m sharing a new one of mine and how I celebrated with some of my favorite people!

Since I love my friends, love getting crafty and love eating it only made sense that I would host a gingerbread cookie decorating party, right!? So about this time last year I did just that (here’s the post) and it was SO FUN! I loved having a party that centered around an activity, especially because most of my friends didn’t know each other (some were bloggers, some from my NYC adventures and a few from work) so it was so fun to get them all in one room engaging in something seasonal! Of course, I decided to make it a tradition, and this year hosted it again! The cool part is I now have double the friends (yay) and a slightly bigger apartment so it was fun to bring some of the same people and a couple new faces together again!

Planning for this party was SO EASY you have no idea! If you wanted to host one for your friends – here’s how!

Party Prep: Most of my time was spent prepping for the party by cleaning my usually messy apartment, purchasing a few things and arrange for flowers. These pretties are via B Floral who was kind enough to deliver the day of, I just had to order them a day or so before the event! The night before my party, I stopped by Michaels (so glad we have one close to me in NYC – my life was seriously dark before it opened) and picked up three boxes of gingerbread cookie decorating kits, sprinkles and lots of icing! In total I spent $25 dollars on icing and the cookie boxes, each one comes with 8ish cookies, sprinkles, frosting and fondant! I spent the rest of the evening handing a few christmas lights in the living room!

The Day Of: The morning of my event (way to wait till the last minute Courtney) I ran to Macy’s! If you follow me on Snapchat (xocourtneyquinn) you saw I was there before the doors opened lol waiting to rush the Home Decor section! After stringing up all of my twinkly lights the night before I wanted MORE Christmas Decor, so I stopped by the Martha Stewart section to pick up these darling holiday pillows, her collection also has cute serving trays, cake plates and decorating essentials all on crazy sale right now! I then dashed home to drop off my goodies before wondering to the grocery store where I picked up, cheese, fig spread, crackers, grapes and pomegranate seeds I used to create a DIY cheese board section (thought it would be a nice off set to all of the sweets going on at the party) and cookie dough! Back at the apartment I made cookies (when you’re done, put them in a container with a piece of bread to make them extra soft!), chilled the champs and the pre-made purchased frosting too (otherwise it would be too runny) and started setting up for the party, before skipping out to spend the day exploring the city!

One Hours Before: I returned home, put the final touches on my place and light a Christmas Candle (I love how this one smells just like a tree!). I put Elf on my TV (Also bought it on Vinyl), slipped into my ugly sweater, turned on the lights and opened the windows to prevent my place from getting too heated with all of those extra bodies. The flowers arrived hand delivered to my apartment that time and I arranged them accordingly! About thirty min before, I set out the cookies and made sure everything was in place, and fifteen min before people showed up I set out the cheese section and bubbly – and waited for the fun to begin!

Overall planning the party was so easy, and really fun! I had about twenty five people in my place, but you could do the same with a small group or a big one with ease! It’s really special to have a tradition that you create a build over time – I am SO excited to host another one of these color me cookie parties next year!

Pillows || Lights || Candle || Serving Tray || Cake Plate ||Cake Plate
Serving Tray || Bubbly || Blooms || Sweater || Skirt ||Boots || Record
Get into the holiday Spirit with Martha & learn how the crafting queen does Christmas Cookies while being home for the holidays here!

BIG FAT THANKS To all my awesome friends who crammed in my tiny apartment and to Martha Stewart (P.S. Check me out spreading cheer with Martha here), Chandon and B Floral for the GORGEOUS winter flower arrangements!