Tacky Christmas Sweater Party

I don't know about you, but I definitely have a small collection of oversized sweaters from my youth...complete with animals, bells and other sound effects. Naturally, I needed an occasion to bust out my all-time favorite and so my husband and I threw a Tacky Christmas Sweater Potluck. I decided to make the tacky theme not only apply to the apparel, but the decorations, table setting and everything else possible. I figured this would be extra festive and let's face it - it's a lot cheaper to decorate tacky than classy.

Invitations
I found a picture of a tacky Christmas sweater and printed it out on cardstock. I printed the invitation wording on the other side of the paper. Then once printed, I cut out the sweater and had a cute little invitation. And I went with the tagline "The Tackier the Sweater, the Better the Party."




Decor
I really wanted to have Christmas lights everywhere and envisioned them hanging from the ceiling all over the table. So, I bought some of the vintage style big bulb strands and held them up with masking tape (no need for fancy brackets or methods of disguise...masking tape falls right into the tacky party theme!). Crazily enough these lights were extremely difficult to find and I ended up finally finding them at Walgreens of all places. For other decorations, I hit up the Dollar Store and bought plastic bell and ornament garlands and paper cut outs which I taped around the apartment.

Table Setting
First of all, I wanted to have a sit down dinner for 13 which was going to be impossible with our dining room table which seats 6. So, we rented two long tables from a local party equipment rental place - we got both tables for only $10! Definitely worth it. For the table decorations, once again the Dollar Store came through with paper, Christmas print table cloths, garland and these little trees in crazy sparkly colors. When you put it all together...awesome. Now, I did slack in the tacky by using our actual plates, silverware, glasses, chargers, napkins and these adorable ornament napkin rings from Crate & Barrel. And for dessert, I got to bust out my new Pottery Barn reindeer dessert plates. But...I really wanted to use them, so I did! I did actually assign seats, which may have been slightly elementary school, but I've read that with groups that big, it lessens anxiety and allows for "conversation flow," or something like that. Who knows. :P

Dinner was great - the sweaters/outfits were AMAZING. Mary Ellen won the "Tackiest" award and Justin and his self-made snuggie were also great. It was so much fun and I think we just might have to repeat next year...