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Whether you’re hosting a family Christmas dinner or are planning the office holiday party, your goal is the same: to make it a gathering your guests will always remember. Fun, unexpected surprises are an easy way to delight your co-workers, friends and loved ones. From keepsakes to party themes to the menu, there are plenty of opportunities to get creative and serve up something your guests haven’t experienced at a Christmas party before. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Keepsakes that Keep on Giving

Hosts of a holiday party aren’t usually expected to give their guests gifts, which is one way to surprise partygoers. Ideally, a gift the recipient can use over and over again will remind them of the good times they had at your party. Custom-printed hoodies, sweaters or long-sleeve shirts definitely fit that bill. Once you find a company that offers screen printing in Ottawa for small and large orders alike, you can think up a funny saying, exercise your drawing skills, use digital images or simply commemorate the event with your family or company name. Your guests will have unique, comfy hoodies or sweaters to wear at the party and something to remember you by whenever it gets chilly for years to come.

Keep in mind, however, that regardless of what you gift your guests, it’s all in the presentation. A fun way to gift custom sweaters, or any other gift this holiday season, is in a personalized DIY gift bag. Making them can be a fun and creative activity for you and the kids to experience that involves them in the gifting-giving and helps them practice their crafting skills.

Fun Christmas Dinner/Party Themes & Activities

Here are a few non-traditional Holiday party themes and activities that you can use to add a little variety to your annual dinner or get-together.

Outdoor Christmas Party Activities

Yes, Ottawa winters can get painfully cold outside in the wind. But there are also plenty of sunny winter days that are perfect for ice skating, tobogganing, a bonfire or building snow castles using sand & snow castle-building kits. Just be sure to have backup activities planned in case the weather doesn’t cooperate on the day of your party.

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Karaoke, Movie and/or Game Night Christmas Party

If frozen toes, fingers and noses would interfere with the joy of an outdoor Christmas party, or your brood is just not the outdoorsy type, you can combine your Christmas party with one of your favourite nights of the week (or month) – karaoke, game or movie night.

Unlike the impromptu sing-alongs, games of charades or traditional gatherings around the TV for a classic Christmas film, plan your holiday party as a night of full-on:

Board games. If your family and friends are board gamers, you already know that they’ve come a long way since the days of Scrabble, Monopoly, Snakes & Ladders, etc. They’re better than ever at teaching players of all ages critical thinking skills like logic, strategy and planning. Many newer games also incorporate teamwork, with players working together to beat the game itself. There are also numerous games based on popular movie franchises and streamable series, which can make a board game an exciting pastime that ties into a Movie/TV-themed party.
Movie or Binge-TV Night Christmas Party. Films and TV shows provide an infinite number of themes to help you plan an outside-of-the-box Christmas dinner party. You can base your party on a tried-and-true family favourite, the latest global smash hit or a movie or TV show that fits a pre-determined theme.
Karaoke Competition Christmas. If you have a family filled with aspiring pop stars or better-than-average shower soloists, you can plan a karaoke party of Christmas/holiday songs or curate a playlist based on the theme of your party. You can really spice things up by making it a competition with plenty of prizes for all the participants.

Christmas Pageant Dinner and a Show

If your party will have a significant number of kids (of any age) who like to put on a show, consider sending out scripts, holding rehearsals, and turning your home or party room into a dinner theatre. Costumes can be readily thrifted or thrown together, and if you really want to go all out, backgrounds and curtain frames can be assembled easily enough by enthusiastic DIYers. Don’t forget to have a proper video camera set up on a tripod so you’ll always have the recording to enjoy with (and at the expense of) the cast.

Alternate Holiday Dinner Menu Items

Your holiday dinner menu can be influenced by your party theme, it can be based on modern takes of classic Christmas dishes, or you can simply add random non-traditional dishes like the ones below.

Holiday Taco Night

Taco night is generally a fan favourite, so why not give the people what they want? You might have to use burrito shells depending on your meat of choice, but don’t be afraid to get creative and consider the following options:

Fish. Fish tacos are a popular choice taco choice, but when was the last time you had fish tacos at a Christmas party? Also, you can use fish sticks if you’re looking for a convenient, easy-to-prepare meat filling.
Steak or ribs. Try braising or marinating them in pomegranate juice with a hint of cinnamon and/or chile pepper to spice things up a little. As an added bonus, both pomegranate and cinnamon are recommended to strengthen your immune system and help you fight off colds and flus.
Turkey. The line between a taco and a wrap can get a little blurry here, but whatever you call them, using traditional turkey accompaniments, corn, cranberries, potatoes, gravy, mac & cheese, etc., make delicious toppings.

Christmas Jambalaya

Not much can hit the spot as well as a hearty helping of jambalaya can on a cold holiday dinner night. Really, the only rules to a jambalaya are that your ingrediants taste good with Cajun spices and that it’s all cooked together. Whether you go with Christmas dinner ingredients, New Orleans-inspired flavours or some type of fusion, a big pot can satisfy a lot of people.

Homemade Holiday Donuts

Puddings, pies, cakes and cupcakes are understandable go-to choices for Christmas dinner desserts, but homemade donuts with a holiday twist can ignite some excited chatter when they make their way to the dessert table. Feeling overly patriotic? Try maple glazed donuts topped with candied bacon crumble for a taste that’s both distinctly holiday and Canadian.

For the Silo, Jeg Duaso. Featured image: by Nicole Michalou via Pexels

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Recent research has found that over 70% of people research a small business online before making a first purchase. The online space is therefore crucial in creating traction for a new business, product, or service since it is the place where a good first impression is made. Implementing a good website and marketing strategy is paramount here since they have the ability to create a presence within the desired market and communicate with potential customers. One particular activity that is evidently successful in creating visibility for a brand and its website is advertising. Developing an advertising strategy that not only promotes a brand but ensures a valued customer journey is essential, and we’ll take a look at why below.

Considering the consumer journey

Before even exploring advertisement options, a small business must first consider their potential customer, since they will essentially drive the business. Understanding the needs of an audience will be useful in deciding what advertisement options to pursue, as a business will gain an understanding of what platforms they can be found on, such as Facebook vs Instagram. In understanding their journey, a business will be more able to make customers’ experience with the brand more enjoyable and memorable, which means the customer will be more likely to consider and complete a purchase.

As a business, it’s also essential to safeguard customers on their journey, as this will prevent them from coming into any harm and consequently avoiding the brand. This can mainly be done by preventing harmful ads from reaching customers via anti-malvertising software found on Geoedge. This can be considered as a business investment for every organisation on the internet as it puts the customer first, in turn giving the company the potential to create more revenue via increased purchases. After all, it’s typical of most people to leave a site when they are bombarded with ads: prevention is better than cure in this instance.

Advertisement type

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When it comes to creating a business ad, there’s more than one option to choose from and you can select a few or implement them all. Among the most popular are PPC, Display and SEO, not to mention social media. Whereas PPC and Display are essentially visual advertisements like banners that are displayed on websites across the internet to create attention and create traffic, SEO is a bit more technical.

SEO stands for search engine optimisation and essentially makes a website more visible among an array of competitors on search engine platforms like Google. By utilising this as an advertisement opportunity, it will help a domain’s authority ranking to increase, making a brand more visible to its audience. Plus, advertisements are also trackable and software like Comscore enables a small business to trial what advertisements work for them in order to modify them in the future.

Since the internet is accessed by millions daily, it’s easy for a new independent business to disappear within the plethora of businesses. Yet, by implementing an advertisement strategy that caters to and safeguards potential customers while creatively and strategically placing ads online, small businesses will start to see an increase in traffic.

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Fun Christmas Party Surprises To Wow Your Guests