How to Host a Sips & Dips Party
Sips and Dips Party Theme is super easy to create! All your favorite dips surround
chips of all kinds and thirst-quenching sips are ready to be shared!
A Sips and Dips Party Theme is exactly what you need to use when you want to enjoy your party, and not think about things all night long.
Each Christmas season we host a giant cocktail party.
We invite 100+ of our friends to drop by and share some good food and good cocktails. Toasting to the holiday season and the new year ahead.
Having hosted this big party for several years, we’ve settled on a menu that’s good for all night long.
We invite people to drop in from 7 to 11 PM, however, most of the time people stay the whole evening.
The house is decked out for the season — we’re now up to 4 Christmas trees, lots of lights everywhere, and little vignettes.
It’s so fun to see how excited people get over all the decorations!
This year, to make it super easy on myself, I knew I wanted to create a menu that was “fix it and forget it.”
So, I used several dip recipes, slow cookers, and “assemble ahead of time platters” to achieve this.
I’ll walk you through the entire planning process!
How to Plan a Sips & Dips Party Theme
Quick Run Down:
- Choose lots of dip recipes that used all kinds of ‘dipping vessels’ — tortilla chips, triscuits, pita crackers, ritz, club crackers, scoops, etc.
- Buy ‘pre-chopped’ fruit and veggies trays, and reassembled on my own platters.
- Add some easy meatballs and little smoke recipes to two slow cookers.
- Purchase a couple of Chick-Fil-A nugget platters and put them on our own trays.
- For the sips, wine and beer, and a signature cocktail: Jingle Juice (it’s a must-have each season!)!
What dips did I serve?
- Spinach Artichoke Dip
- Mexican Layered Dip
- Easy Greek Layered Dip
- Hissy Fit Dip
Tips for Make Ahead Dips:
Yes! All of these recipes you can make a couple of days ahead of time, then bake/fill platters, and serve.
The baked dips (spinach artichoke and the hissy fit dip) were mixed up ahead of time, stored in air-tight containers in the fridge, and the day of the party they were baked off in their serving pieces.
For the Saturday evening party, I mixed these dips up on Thursday evening.
The Mexican Layer Dip, I made that on Friday evening.
The evening of the party, I assembled the Greek Layered Dip, since it’s just opening a bunch of containers and dishing them out. Super easy!
Prep Ahead Task List:
Here are the things you can do the week before, leading up to your party.
- Have your home cleaned — seriously, it sounds over the top and slightly not necessary (everyone should be able to clean their home, right?!), but it’s one thing OFF your list you can delegate!
- Check your paper goods. Do you have enough paper plates (or if you’re using real plates, do you have enough?)? Napkins? Cups? What about hot cups for coffee/tea/hot chocolate?
- Purchase the wine, beer, and liquor for the signature cocktail.
- Gather your serving platters and serving utensils.
- Label each platter with a sticky note, noting what you’re going to be serving on it and what utensil you’ll need.
- Get out your drink dispenser, a tub/bucket for beer, and anything else you’ll need for the bar setup.
It’s a lot of work if you leave these things until the day of. By doing a couple of things each day, every small task leads to a more effortless party the day of!
The day of your party, gather all your things, and place them where they need to be.
To keep a party moving, serve items all over the house.
We like to serve drinks in the breakfast room, which connects to the dining room.
To create more space, we move all the chairs away from the table and scooch the table up to the window.
This creates a larger gathering place, where people can mingle while grabbing a beverage.
Now, let’s chat about the Sips!
Make this easy on yourself — there is no reason for you to be making individual drinks for people all night long.
I’ve got two ways of handling drinks for a crowd…
First, you can serve from a drink dispenser.
This is what I do most of the time, and if I know I’ll need to refill, I’ll make up a second batch, that way I can just plop it into the dispenser when it gets low.
Second, you can post the drink recipe in a frame, and have people help themselves.
For this option to work, make the drink recipe only a few ingredients. <<< So people aren’t coming to find you and interrupt your conversation to ask “how do I make the drink again?” ?
Here are some drink dispenser ready recipes for you to try!
Sips for a Crowd
This festive Winter Sangria is made with a base of Vino Verde and infused with pomegranate, pear, and fresh lime. It’s festive, delicious, and can be made ahead of time!
Pimm’s Cup and Strawberries and Cream: Wimbledon’s Quintessential English Indulgences
Pimm’s Cup is a quintessential English beverage traditionally served during Wimbledon’s tennis tournament. I describe it as an English sangria. It goes well with strawberries and cream which are also served during Wimbledon.
This Blood Orange Champagne Sangria takes less than 10 minutes to whip up—I think you can handle that! Drinks? Covered!
White Christmas cranberry margaritas are a festive cocktail to serve this Christmas season. Your guests will adore this Christmas margarita recipe. This Christmas cocktail will help make your season extra merry and bright- even if you’re Christmas isn’t white.
Simple and refreshing, Ginger Peach White Sangria is the perfect easy cocktail recipe for all of your summer occasions! Fresh peaches, a touch of citrus, and refreshing ginger beer make this bubbly goodness.
Pin this to your favorite party board on Pinterest!
Wow that spread is amazing! I will have to remember all of these ideas for the holidays! Thank you!
Wow there’s so many great ideas here! I’ve saved a few that I know I’m going to try soon! Thank you!
Thanks!!
That is such an amazing spread. Love the idea of having a sips and dips party. Pinning this for the holiday season. Thank you.
It’s a really fun idea for the holiday season!
I absolutely love this idea! Dips are my favorite appetizers, so this works out perfectly! Thanks so much for the inspiration!
Of course!
These are wonderful ideas. Great recipes and so easy to make! And those drinks are perfect for backyard BBQ parties!
They really are!