The Year Without A Santa Claus (But Not Without a Party)
Updated: 2 days ago
Last year (2025), was the first year we hosted a Christmas party with a movie as the party theme. Obviously, we had to do my favorite movie first- The Year Without A Santa Claus. I knew I wanted to theme the different rooms in my house as different sets seen in the movie so that my guests felt like they took a step into the movie, and were able to look around and constantly see different little details. To start off, we had to send an invitation-and as much as I would love to be a paper invite person, I'm just not. So, we made this layout (as shown in the picture above), snapped the picture and sent it off to our guests. I knew I wanted to make the Miser Brothers for party decor, so I got to work making those (and I'd like to point out that I am not artistic AT ALL, so if I can do this, you can too!). To make them I grabbed some poster board from the Dollar Tree, and ordered some acrylic paint markers from Amazon. I started by finding two images on google images that I thought I could recreate-the key to drawing when you do not have a lot of skill, is to find an image that clearly shows all the lines you need to recreate. Once I selected the image, I follow it line by line. I do small lines and constantly reference the image as I finish my initial outline. After the pencil outline, I used a black acrylic marker to go over those and then filled in the different colored areas with the acrylic markers. For the white areas on the faces, I did go in with a white paint so those popped a little more. When those were initally done (I did do the background at a later point), I was ready to throw together the rest of the layout. I bordered the image with matching colored tinsel and ornament garland that I also picked up at the Dollar Tree. Then I made the middle sign with all the important information about the party (important to note that I did include a second picture in the invitation with a close up of this paper so no one had to zoom to see). I added the little speech bubbles after feeling like the picture was missing something. Heat Miser is saying "Bring the heat, we'll bring the drinks!" and Snow Miser saying, "I'm Mr. Party Night, Come chill with us!". Even though it is definitely not picture perfect, I think it perfectly conveyed the light-hearted, fun vibe we were inviting our guests to take part in.
Next, was theming the rooms: picking the food/drinks, and deciding what games we wanted to play. Each room had a game and the party became a competition to see which team of two people could get the most points and win the prize. The first place team in the game won the most points, and the other places received fewer until the last place team got 0. To make this as easy as it can be, I highly recommend watching the movie you choose with a notebook. I wrote down all the characters (and any notable outfit/quote), any place they went (what was note-worthy about the place? Did they do anything specific?), and any other details that stick out. The easiest decisions were the places and assigning them to a room.
The entryway the first area you see; so I wanted it to feel like the title scene from the movie, which included all the headlines about Santa not coming. To make the banner, I again used that same tip from above-finding a reference photo that had very defined lines I could easily replicate. I used the same acrylic markers as earlier to outline and fill in the letters. To make the newspapers, I referenced the headlines from the movies (a note I had taken from my watch through), found some free newspaper templates on canva and edited the pictures and headlines to fit what I wanted. Then I added a balloon arch to complete a cute, photo area. If you notice in the bottom left of the right hand picture, I also added some santa hats as photo props-with a sign saying, "Anyone Can Be Santa" - a nod to the song, Mrs. Claus sings at the beginning.
Unfortunately for this first room, I do not have the best picture. This blog was not yet a thought, so documenting this definitely slipped my mind. This picture was taken mid set up, but I will describe it the best way I can! Also, it is important to keep in mind, that this is typically my daycare room-which is why I have a giant play house. This room was meant to be "Mother Nature's Garden", this room also was where the drinks were served (which I will go over at the end). Since this room was meant to be inspired by Mother Nature, I used a lot of greens and browns. I covered my playhouse in a nature inspired wrapping paper with a sign pointing out "Mother Nature's Cottage". I hung garland from the windows with light green and brown ornaments, as well as hanging green and brown ornaments from the ceiling. The final touch was a sign with the quote, "They're nasty little boys, both of them!", to transition into the Miser Brother's room. The activity/game for this room was "Mother Nature's Trivia", where guests participated in a Kahoot that was based on questions from the movie.
Next room was "Heat vs Snow Miser". Again, I was not in a documenting head space and did not get the greatest pictures of this. I used red/orange and blue/silver colors all over to symbol the dueling brothers. As you can see in the pictures above, I also chose to paint the background of the characters black, that way they would blend into the darkness in the window at nighttime. The activity in here was "Fire vs Snow", which was beer pong. I added blue cups to one end and orange to the other to show the dueling elements.
Exiting this room takes you right to the kitchen-which we transformed into "Southtown, USA". Our inspiration was that the kitchen would be like a "diner" in Southtown. We based the food on things that we saw in the movie at this location. We did "Vixen's Fixens" and this was basically a bunch of appetizer foods-one being spicy meatballs as an ode to the South being hot. Also did a , Vixen's "in the pound" cake for dessert. This room was fairly simple to decorate as I did not want to clutter the kitchen too much. I hung a sign and red tinsel from the box light (stay tuned for a blog post about how we changed that light out!) that signaled a change in location. I also had previously hung ribbon on the kitchen cabinets, so I just added in some pictures from Southtown in the movie. I wanted to draw some characters, like the dog catcher and the police man, but unfortunately that was past my artistic ability. I based the activity in this room on Vixen, the dog catcher, and Vixen's sock ear coverings. I had one half of the team on one side of the kitchen counter and the other half on the other side. One side threw socks, while the other side tried to catch them in a net. The team that got the most socks within the time limit won the game.
From the kitchen, we could go to the hallway or the living room-we're going to go the hallway! The hallway was turned into "Santa Claus Lane". The decor here was pretty simple as I had already hung garland, twinkling stars, and snowflake ornaments from the ceiling. As well as a sign with the reindeer names and a Santa's sleigh and reindeer statue. The game for this area was essentially flip cup with a twist. I did eight cups (to correspond to eight reindeer) down the slim hallway table, one partner on one side, one on the other. Where they each had to flip a cup, then wait for their partner to flip the next one till they got to the end. At the end, there was one final cup to flip to symbolize the ninth reindeer, Ruldolph. We timed each team, and the fastest team won.
If you take a right in the hallway, you'll end up in the bathroom-I wish I had pictures to show because this was my favorite room! I themed this room after the song "Blue Christmas" in the movie, where the little girl and all the other kids are singing about how sad they are going to be without Santa. I decorated with blue twinkling lights. blue garland. and blue ornaments hanging from the ceiling. I also replicated the artwork the children drew in the movie with acrylic paint sticks (not the markers used previously) and taped those all over the wall. A finishing touch was drawing the outline of the little girl on the mirror so that guests could put their own face in it! The activity in this room was the vote box for the costume contest. I asked everyone to dress as characters from the movie, and gave a prize to the best dressed!
Finally at our last room, the living room, AKA, "The North Pole". I wanted this room to have an overflow of tinsel and snowflakes. I really wanted it to have the whimsy of a cartoon North Pole would. For this room, I hung tinsel stemming from the ceiling fan outwards towards the walls and paper snowflakes from that. I added the North Pole sign from the movie at the start of the living room. Behind the couch, I set up another mini photo station by adding wrapping paper with Santa and a quote from song from the movie, "So you're too old for Santa Claus, he said with a smile. Then you're too old for all the things that make a life worthwhile...". Directly behind the couch I added a fake snow blanket and small trees from the Dollar Tree. The activity in this room was "Operation: Santa". We put Santa's face on the operation board game and timed teams as they each completed operation on sick santa. Again, the fastest team wins!
That covers all the rooms and the games within each! At the end, we totalled up each team's points and the winning team received a gift card and candle. Bonus points were awarded if one of your team members found a hiding santa (one was hidden in each room-except for in the "Anyone Can Be Santa" basket was a Mrs. Claus). For drinks, I served two drinks, one for Heat Miser and one for Snow Miser. Both were mock tails, with the option to add shots of vodka that I had portioned out in ornament shot glasses. I like doing this so everyone can participate in drinking a themed drink without feeling singled out. I also served seasonal Poppi, water and seasonal beer.
And that is how we had, "The Year Without Santa Claus" Party!
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