An Ugly Sweater Party is a fun and special way to celebrate the festive season. This party is all about hilarious ugly sweaters and quirky activities to keep everyone entertained and in good spirits.
This year, to ensure the party is in the next level of excitement, make sure to have in mind top 10 of the funniest things to do at a Ugly Sweater party. From fun activities, creative sweater decorating tips to delicious food and drink, these ideas will turn your party into a memorable celebration.
What is an Ugly Sweater Party
An Ugly Sweater Party is a festive celebration where guests wear their most hilariously ugly, weird yet festive sweaters. This kind of party is a playful way to spread the holiday spirit with humor and creativity.
When Do We Celebrate an Ugly Sweater Party?
Ugly Sweater Parties are typically held during the holiday season. It is held in December, often around Christmas, when we wear festive sweaters.
Related blog: 7 Exceptional Christmas Party Themes No One’s Seen Before
What Do You Do at an Ugly Sweater Party?
This party is suitable for family or friend gatherings. At an Ugly Sweater Party, people usually host a sweater contest to find the “ugliest” or most creative design. They also play holiday-themed games, take pictures in photo booths, celebrate with festive snacks and drinks. There can also be other fun activities like gift exchanges, dancing night or karaoke.
What is Ugly Sweater Party held for?
The purpose of an Ugly Sweater Party is to bring people together in a
3 Things To Do Before An Ugly Sweater Party
An Ugly Sweater Party sounds pretty fun, right? However, before throwing such a party, a little preparation is needed to make your event a hit. Here are 3 simple steps for preparing an Ugly Sweater party.
1. Ugly Sweater-Themed Party Decorations
The right decoration does nothing but set the atmosphere for your Ugly Sweater Party. Fun and festive decorations are key for this party:
Entrance
Let’s place themed greetings right at the entrance of Ugly Sweater party. Consider setting up an archway decorated with these details:
- Faux sweaters garlands
- Holiday ornaments
- Add a sign that says, “Ugly Sweaters Welcome!”
- Hang a custom banner with a message like “Let’s Get Ugly!”
Walls
For wall decorations, use details like sweater cutouts or festive posters with holiday patterns to match the theme of the overall party.
Christmas Lights
You can easily brighten the space with multicolored Christmas lights. Especially, pair them with garlands shaped like tiny sweaters. These small details make the party venue so eye-catching.
Tables
Decorate the party tables with holiday tablecloths and centerpieces featuring mini sweaters or ornaments.
2. Prepare the Prizes
One of the most important things for an Ugly Sweater party is preparing the prizes for the most outrageous outfits. You should create categories like “Ugly,” “Uglier,” and “Ugliest”,… for those prizes. Then, turn them into something physical. There are plenty ideas to do it, such as:
- Ugly sweater badges
- DIY clothespins
- Custom reward stickers featuring holiday patterns or funny phrases like “Winner of Ugly!”
How about getting creative and making these prizes yourself? There also may ways to DIY the prizes:
- Use cardstock and glitter for a simple option
- Combine felt and buttons if you good at crafting things
- Use vinyl die-cut stickers and stick them on a plain clothespin as an easy and budget-friendly solution.
These DIY prizes can be kept as keepsakes after the party and we are sure your guests will love that idea.
3. Food and Drinks
Sweater-themed treats as well as Christmas-inspired snacks are must have in an Ugly Sweater party. You should prepare them beforehand, before the party actually starts.
Sweater-shaped food
Serve cookies and cupcakes shaped like sweaters and decorate them with colorful frosting.
Christmas snacks and drinks
- Include seasonal favorites like
- Gingerbread cookies
- Candy canes
- Hot cocoa
- Eggnog
- …
For food presentation, you can use clear cups and containers, allowing the holiday sweets to shine for themselves.
To make these items more festive, personalize them with custom stickers. CustomAny highly recommends using:
- Vinyl stickers as food labels in the form of toothpicks
- Clear stickers that work perfectly for transparent background
- UV DTF transfer stickers that glossy and raised from the surface to pop up their full-color printed look
Besides, don’t forget the tables. Level up them with Christmas ornaments, miniature sweaters, and faux snow for an overall charming look.
6 Things To Do during your Ugly Sweater Party
An Ugly Sweater Party is all about creating fun and memorable moments for your guests. Let’s explore some entertaining games and activities to keep the laughter throughout the party.
4. Ugly Sweater Making Party
An Ugly Sweater Party doesn’t need to be just everyone arriving with their sweaters pre-made when you can turn this event into an interactive party of letting guests decorate their sweaters on the spot.
Provide all the supplies needed for this creative DIY project:
- Plain sweaters (in various sizes and colors)
- Felt shapes
- Fabric glue
- Cute pom-poms
- Tinsel
- Patches
- Buttons
- Glitter
- Mini ornaments
- Scissors
- Hot glue guns
- …
Besides, encourage guests to bring their own materials and details to make sure they can turn their ideas into finished products.
5. Hilarious Accessories Shopping
How about setting up a mini accessory shop right at the Ugly Sweater party for guests to “shop” for ugly and funny accessories, which match with the sweater to complement their outfit?
You can provide items like:
- Mismatched socks
- Wool hats with quirky designs
- Oversized gloves
- Silly scarves.
- Headbands
- Light-up necklaces
- Christmas-themed sunglasses.
Arrange the items on a small table or rack, and let guests pick their favorite accessories. In case you want to sell these things, you can stick custom labels onto their containers to show their name and price.
6. Ugly Sweater Fashion Show
What’s an Ugly Sweater Party without a fashion show? You should create a runway and let your guests showcase their fabulous (or fabulously awful) sweater designs!
- Use a long rug or string lights to mark the path.
- Encourage guests to walk the catwalk while striking exaggerated poses.
- Set the mood with funny or upbeat Christmas music: “All I Want for Christmas Is You” or “Jingle Bell Rock”.
The fashion show is the highlight of an Ugly Sweater party where everyone in turn showcases their special sweaters and brings their best modeling moves and poses. This activity definitely gets the room laughing.
7. Who Has the Ugliest Sweater?
In such Ugly Sweater Party, after the fashion show there will be a vote for the ugliest sweater.
How to vote? You need to set up a voting station with ballots and a box, or have guests vote by applause. There should be various categories like “Ugliest,” “Funniest,” and “Most Creative” to keep everyone excited.
What will the winners get? Use the badges prepared earlier as awards for the winners. Anyone will love having a fun keepsake to show off their victory.
8. Ugly Sweater Dancing Contest
An Ugly Sweater Party will be so much fun with a dance-off in festive melodies
Let’s clear a space for a dance floor and let guests show off their moves while wearing their ridiculous sweaters. You should choose Christmas songs for this activity.
Want motivation to get everyone involved? Let’s form up a panel of judges or let the crowd decide the winner based on applause. Also, you can create categories like “Best Moves,” “Most Awkward Dance,” or “Funniest Performance” just like you did for the Ugliest sweater contest.
9. Ugly Sweater Photo Booth Challenge
Nothing allows you to keep the fun last longer than a photo booth. Let’s use it in the next game for your Ugly Sweater Party: a ugly sweater photo challenge.
- Decorate a corner of the party venue with holiday backdrops
- Provide props like oversized candy canes, Santa hats, and speech bubbles with funny phrases.
- A few ugly sweater-themed props, like foam sweater cutouts.
- Encourage guests to pose the silliest pictures they can even think of.
- Offer a small prize for the best photo or let everyone vote on their favorite shots after the party.
Everyone will love to join these 6 games and activities and your Ugly Sweater Party will definitely spread laughter and joy.
1 Last Things To Do after your Ugly Sweater Party
After your Ugly Sweater Party, it’s advised to send your guests home with fun party favors.
10. Ugly Sweater Party Favors
For an Ugly Sweater party, consider gifting small, inexpensive yet useful items:
- Holiday-themed candy
- Cozy socks
- Wool hats
- …
You can also give them holiday sweets like cookies, candy canes, etc.
Another idea is to print and distribute photos taken at the party, especially from the photo booth.
To make these Ugly Sweater party favors even more special, consider adding custom stickers onto the packages.
- For candy bags, you could stick die-cut stickers or circle stickers with the party’s name, time, places, or fun phrases like “Most Festive Guest”
- For photos, a sweater-themed sticker can act as both a decoration and a keepsake. Consider also creating award stickers, like a festive trophy and writing next to it a line of “Winner: Ugliest Sweater”.
These little additions are the easiest way to make your favors stand out and also personalized.
In case you are in need of high-quality custom stickers to use for this purpose, remember at … we offer a variety of options at cusotmany.com. Sticker types include vinyl stickers cut into any shape, holographic stickers that catch the eye of everyone, clear stickers that blend seamlessly and transfer stickers that come with the highest durability. CustomAny’s custom stickers can be customized, printed and cut to fulfill your specific needs.
Wrap it up
You now have plenty of ideas to host an unforgettable Ugly Sweater Party that will leave everyone laughing and having a great time. With suitable activities, decorations, snacks and party favors, your party will be a big hit this holiday season.
If you’re looking for more themed party inspiration, consider checking out other fun ideas, such as a Christmas in July, Anything But a Cup party, etc. These themes are just as exciting and offer unique twists for any occasion.
