Why the best gift you can give your holiday party planner is letting someone else handle the details.
The office potluck has good intentions. Everyone brings a favorite dish. Someone plugs in a slow cooker. Someone else tracks down serving spoons. There is usually a mysterious casserole nobody can identify, but everyone politely samples anyway.
On paper, it sounds festive.
In practice, the people responsible for organizing the celebration can end up spending more time making lists, coordinating food, setting up tables, and cleaning up afterward than actually enjoying the party.
That raises a fair question: If a company holiday party is supposed to thank employees, why should some employees have to work through it?
Kelli Trumbull, Assistant Director of Conference Services here at Stonewall Resort, sees the holiday gathering as an opportunity to do something more meaningful than simply move lunch into the conference room.
How to Plan a Memorable Company Holiday Party
“The holiday season's really about bringing people together, showing your appreciation for your team, your coworkers,” Trumbull says.
That is the real goal. The food matters. The decorations help. But the point is creating a moment when coworkers can stop working long enough to actually enjoy being together.
Take the Celebration Outside the Office
“The office potluck is really about fun, showing people your favorite dishes, sharing some of your world with them,” Trumbull says. “But sometimes the people planning it end up doing more work than the people celebrating.”
Someone has to organize the sign-up sheet, worry whether there will be six desserts and no main course, and figure out if there’s room in the fridge for what needs to be kept cold.
Maybe another “someone” arrives early to decorate and find themselves also serving as the clean-up crew. And those “someones” are often the same people who already handle workplace culture, employee engagement, administrative tasks, or event planning.
That defeats the purpose.
“A holiday party is an opportunity to step away from the everyday workplace and recognize employees for their contributions, and really just be together,” Trumbull says.
Taking the gathering outside the office can immediately change the dynamic. There are no desks waiting nearby. No one is glancing toward a monitor. Nobody has to clear the break room before Monday morning. Most importantly, the planner gets to become a guest.
“When you take the celebration outside of the office and let us do the planning for you, it lets everybody enjoy the party,” Trumbull says. “Everybody can enjoy together.”
That may be the simplest test of a successful company holiday event: Did the person who planned it get to enjoy it too?
Keep the Focus on People, Not Production
It is easy for holiday event planning to become a competition with an imaginary standard.
Is the menu impressive enough?
Do we need entertainment? Should there be games?
Are the decorations elaborate enough?
Do we need an itinerary?
The answer may be much simpler. “I think the key is to keep the focus on the people, not how fancy or elaborate it is,” Trumbull says.
That approach takes pressure off planners while creating a better experience for employees.
Start with the setting. People need to feel comfortable enough to talk with coworkers they may not see regularly, catch up with colleagues from other departments, and have conversations not tied to an agenda.
Then think about the food.
Comfort foods can be especially effective for holiday gatherings because they are approachable, familiar, and naturally communal. Offering several choices also helps accommodate a range of tastes and dietary preferences without turning the meal into a logistical puzzle.
“Offer comfort foods, a menu with options that can accommodate different preferences,” Trumbull says.
Next, resist the temptation to schedule every second. A holiday party does not need to feel like an off-site meeting with better desserts.
Trumbull recommends giving employees room to connect naturally.
“Build in opportunities for people to connect, maybe with some stations,” she says. “You don't have to fill every minute with activities. Just let people organically connect and fellowship with each other.”
Some of the best moments at company events happen between the planned activities: coworkers laughing over dinner, two departments finally putting faces to names, or colleagues discovering they share interests that have nothing to do with work.
Let Someone Else Sweat the Details
For the person responsible for planning the event, the biggest gift may be handing off the details.
Venue selection can either create more work or eliminate it.
Choose a location where the team has to coordinate food, rentals, setup, service, cleanup, and activities from several different vendors, and the event planner may become a full-time project manager for the evening.
Choose a venue designed to handle those pieces together, and the workload changes considerably.
“From the planner's perspective, choose a venue that can handle the details for you,” Trumbull says. “That's what we're here for.”
The benefit goes beyond convenience.
When planners are not troubleshooting food service, checking table arrangements, or wondering whether the next part of the event is running on schedule, they can participate in the experience they created.
“The less time you're spending worrying about setup and food logistics, the more you can actually enjoy the celebration with your team,” Trumbull says.
That matters because company celebrations send a message.
A thoughtfully planned event tells employees their work was noticed. It says the company believes taking time together has value. It gives teams an opportunity to close one chapter of the year before rushing straight into the next.
Those messages are harder to deliver when the party host spends the evening carrying trays.
Turn Dinner Into an Experience
Taking a company holiday party off-site also creates possibilities that are difficult to replicate around the office copier.
At Stonewall Resort, the celebration can expand beyond a single meal.
“What makes Stonewall special is that we can really turn a holiday party into more than just a dinner,” Trumbull says.
Located amid West Virginia scenery and surrounded by the lake, the resort offers something the average conference room cannot: separation from the everyday work environment.
“Our lodge creates that warm, welcoming holiday atmosphere,” Trumbull says, also pointing to the resort's holiday decorations.
Companies can still keep things simple with a reception and dinner. Or they can build a broader experience around the event.
“Companies can have their receptions and dinners here, but they can also add overnights, activities, spa experiences, or simply time to just relax and reconnect,” Trumbull says.
That flexibility gives planners room to match the celebration to the company.
One organization might want an elegant evening dinner. Another might prefer an overnight retreat that allows employees to linger rather than watch the clock. Others may benefit most from simply giving people unstructured time away from work routines.
The point is not to make the event bigger for its own sake.
It is to create enough distance from the workday that people can actually shift gears.
And for planners, Stonewall's involvement begins well before guests arrive.
“Our team works with you from the initial planning through the event itself,” Trumbull says, “so we can really take care of you from the get-go.”
That turns planning from a juggling act into a partnership.
Sometimes the Best Party Isn't Even in December
Holiday planning also comes with one unavoidable complication: December is busy. Employees are balancing work deadlines, family gatherings, travel, school events, shopping, and a calendar that seems to collect obligations overnight.
Stonewall Resort discovered that firsthand during its own employee celebration.
“One of my favorites is last year for our Stonewall employee party,” Trumbull says. “We had this great celebration planned, but the weather got in the way, and it snowed quite a bit, and the roads became impassable.”
The party had to be postponed, which was not exactly what anyone had planned. But the delay produced an unexpected lesson. Stonewall moved the gathering to January and turned it into a winter celebration.
“I think everybody even enjoyed it a little bit more once they had the stress away from the holidays and everybody's holiday celebrations were over,” Trumbull says. “It turned into a fantastic celebration.”
There is a useful takeaway for companies buried in that snowstorm: A holiday party does not have to happen before December 25 to count.
A January celebration can sometimes be easier for employees to attend and easier for planners to organize. It can also give teams something to look forward to after the holiday rush.
Call it a holiday party, a winter gathering, an employee appreciation event, or a start-of-the-year celebration. Employees are unlikely to complain that the recognition arrived a few weeks late.
They may simply be glad nobody asked them to bring a crockpot.
Make the Celebration Feel Like a Celebration
The traditional potluck is not going anywhere, nor should it. There will always be a place for homemade cookies, secret family recipes, and coworkers debating who makes the best chili.
But companies planning an annual holiday event should ask whether the old approach still serves the people the event is supposed to celebrate.
If organizers spend the party working, employees remain mentally tethered to the office, and everyone rushes back to their desks afterward, the event may technically be a party, but never feel much like one.
A better holiday gathering does not necessarily require more. In fact, it may require less. Less setup. Less scheduling. Less logistical juggling. Less pressure on employees to contribute one more thing during an already busy season.
And more time to eat, talk, laugh, relax, and recognize the people who made the year possible.
As Trumbull says, the goal is “really just being together.”
Sometimes the smartest thing a company can bring to the holiday potluck is nothing at all.
Give Your Team a Holiday Party They Can Actually Enjoy
The best company celebrations bring people together without creating more work for the people planning them.
At Stonewall Resort, our team can help take care of the details, from food and event setup to overnight stays, activities, and spa experiences. Whether you’re planning a holiday dinner, an employee appreciation event, or a January celebration after the holiday rush, we’ll help you create an experience that fits your team.
You’ve spent the year taking care of business. Let us take care of the celebration.
Start planning your company holiday celebration at Stonewall Resort >>