Merry Christmas! We are coming at you this week on the blog with a discussion about Christmas parties, specifically Christmas murder mystery parties, and our creative director Leigh's top recommendations for your Christmas and holiday murder mystery parties from our holiday catalogue – AND some that really AREN'T from our holiday catalogue but just – fit.
November is actually a little late to be planning your Christmas party. Everyone's schedules fill up so quickly for Christmas and the holidays that a lot of people are having to push off their holiday parties into January and February. So it can be a kind of competition to get the 'good guests', because everyone is so busy.
Bringing a murder mystery into your Christmas party is a fantastic way to pull your people together and make your party stand out from all the other holiday parties over Christmas. We have huge amount of our clients throwing Christmas parties, not only just in their homes, but also Christmas parties for companies.
Corporate Christmas parties are huge thing, especially using a murder mystery party, because it's an interactive way for people to connect. It's a refreshing change from people talking about work the entire night. And really, who wants to talk about work outside of work, am I right?
A lot of people are planning their company or holiday parties into January and February these days, which is great because it actually allows for a bit of a shift in themes. Hosts are not focusing as much on “Christmas” with holiday parties anymore. The themes have really opened up as hosts realize that with a holiday party that takes place in January or February, they can also loosen up on the theme; after all, at that point, Christmas is over and people are sick and tired of Jingle Bells and Christmas hats and lights - they're over it. So even though it's a “holiday party” people are switching up their themes to be less “Christmas” and more “Awesome in General”.
With this in mind, we have picked seven recommendations for your Christmas party murder mystery this year.
Our first recommendation – The Winter Wonderland Murder, is number one for a reason! It comes in both co-ed and all-female, and is flexible enough to fit into any party situation. There are so many things you can do with it.
The victim, Betty Crosby, is a footballer's wife so it takes place in a mansion and every year she throws this Christmas spectacle. The guest list includes politicians and celebrities and Betty has a stylist who comes in and dresses her for the evening and the society pages report on what everyone's wearing. And then there's this Grand moment where the double doors to this room are thrown open and there she is standing atop this ladder, ready to put the star on the Christmas tree. Only, this evening, when the doors were thrown open, Betty Crosby is found dead under the Christmas tree.
With this who-dun-it, you can have people come casual, oryou can have people dress up a bit, which we tend to do more around the holidays, but ultimately, it's up to you as the host to designate how people will dress for your party. You can have people come in jeans. You can encourage your guests to rent a designer dress for the evening or wear their tux – which most of us don't have the opportunity to do any other time.Betty Crosby's party is also a fundraiser. It was really important to us at SHOT to work this feature into the plot because we have this opportunity as hosts to actually get our people on board to help give back to the community. The charity is not designated, so if you want to declare your holiday murder mystery party a fundraiser for a local cause, it fits right into the plot of this mystery. Again, that's completely optional, but it's an easy way to help raise some money or take donations for your local charities. Our murder mystery kits are used all the time for fundraisers, and we love to give back not only our own community,