How to throw an Oscar party

Guest Post: Troy is a TDS graphic designer, kickboxing instructor, and Oscar fan.

So the clocking is a-tickin’ and we are getting close to Oscar time. How you choose to celebrate this evening is YOUR business, there is no right or wrong way here, people. Some people enjoy viewing it alone. Others throw a giant party. Some people enjoy the show with just a few friends. Others haphazardly watch it throughout their evening. It is whatever you like to do!

Oscar night is quite the event in my house. I have been having friends over to watch the Oscars for about eight years now. It started out relatively small with only six friends. The next year, though, I had just two friends over. (That, however, was largely due to the fact that I was recovering from pneumonia, the heat in my house wasn’t working, AND my house had plumbing issues which made it smell like manure! Yes, all of those things happened at once!). After that year I decided to go all out. And for the next several years, the size of my parties increased. At one point, 35 people packed into my tiny, 720-sq ft home.

How do you make an Oscar party great? Here are some of my ideas (some I have discovered, others I have created) for you:

1) Dress up as your favorite movie character. This idea is for the ambitious and fancy types out there. And to be honest, one I’m not really into. However, I never hold people back and they are free to attend my party however they want. One year my friend came to my house dressed as one of The Supremes. Yes, I mean one of Diana Ross’ Supremes. I don’t know why she did it—this was the Oscars not the Grammys. I think she just wanted to show off her glitter gown. But it was fun and we all enjoyed her enthusiasm. That same year another friend showed up as Ugly Betty from the TV show Ugly Betty. Why? I don’t know since this was the Oscars, not the Emmys (I really don’t know what is wrong with my friends sometimes). But hey, we had a really good time. So, my point is, dressing up as your favorite movie character is a great way to celebrate.

2) Have great food. I am talking food, food, and FOOD. If you’re on a tight budget, a potluck is the way to go. I find my friends are happy to participate. I find it best to be a little prepared and provide suggestions for what people can bring. One year, when I didn’t, two of my friends both made a cranberry pie. One pie was definitely the party favorite and my friend who brought the less-popular pie still talks bitterly about it even though it was six years ago!

3) Decorate! I like to keep my decorations simple. Okay, that’s not entirely true. I like to make it obnoxious and honor the event, but in a budget-friendly way. I go online and find headshots of all the nominees. I then place their image onto an 8.5×11 piece of paper, print it out, cut it out, and then tape a stick on the back. Voilà, you now have masks of all the nominees. When the acting awards are presented, each person can hold the mask on a stick and pretend to be waiting in the audience like the real nominees (yes, this takes some acting skills).

Here’s another fun thing to do with those faces: take each nominee photo and make it small enough to fit on an 8.5×11 piece of paper four times. Print out about 50 of each face, cut them out, and stick them all over your house. I’ll also use the pictures to cover tables, tape them around windows, fireplaces, and toilets. I hang them around chairs, archways, chair rails, anything that you can stick them to. Now, yes, this seems a little bizarre (I don’t know if it is more bizarre then the paper masks or not) but people love it, they get a good laugh out of it and it just sets the evening up for lighthearted fun. This may sound like an ambitious project, but I have cut out about 500 faces and I am telling you, it really doesn’t take that long. We are not striving for perfection here.

Enjoy and remember…there is no Oscar for best (or worst) decoration!