Events for Home: Complete Party Ideas and Plans to Enjoy with Housemates and/or Friends

During lockdown 2020, I was super fortunate to have lived in a share house with some of the best people I have met. These following ideas and plans have since been trialed and tested by them truly. It was through this difficult time for many, that we aimed to make the best of the fortunate situation we were in (living together in a home).

These ideas make for a perfect day at home with family, friends, or housemates. Events at home always feel more wholesome, not to mention can be a lot cheaper than all heading out, and are convenient for the host to easily change into PJs and crawl into bed after it's all over. Wins all over!

A lot of these events include alcohol in the planning - but that can easily be removed or substituted.

Bottomless Brunch

A bottomless brunch at home is a super way to cut back on costs and food wastage, (everything not eaten can be stored in your fridge for later!). It's super easy to organise too.

In the event or chat, set a theme (we did Garden Party) and the bottomless drinks served (Espresso Martinis, yes please!) and have everyone bring a dish or contribution to the drinks. Chats are a great way for everyone to share what they are bringing so there's no double up of food. Start as early as you like! After our allocated 'bottomless' time, we turned the backyard into a True American play field and ended the evening with Just Dance videos and cards games. Other games perfect for a Bottomless Brunch event include: 'What Do You Meme?', 'Never Have I Ever' of whatever rating you wish, or even Scrawl.

Circus Party

This one was a really fun one. It was like a combination of circus entertainment and childhood parties. For food we did all your circus favourites - popcorn, corndogs, softdrinks, and a lions face carrot and hummus dip. We all got dressed up in theme, and went all out with the decorations.

For games, we had some fun ones to choose from. To decide which game we were going to play next, we had to pop a balloon and read the game out from inside. Some of the games included:

• Apple bobbing

• Pin the nose on the clown

• Charades

• Tin can knocking over

• Ping Pong Toss - beer pong
  

90's Party

This was another of my favourites because who doesn't love a 90's party?!

Again, we all dressed in theme and decorated accordingly with out favourite 90's music and TV shows (Friends included) in the background.

We made a paper Fortune Teller to decided which game we would play next and each section was a 90's icon.

Food for the night included fairy bread, raspberry twizzlers, party pies and sausage rolles, and of course, pizza.  

We played games like dividing into two teams and eating the cheetohs of the clotheslines as quickly as possible. Games as well as:

• Chandelier - drinking game

• Limbo

• Drinking Tic Tac Toe

We even whipped out the Glow Sticks and dance to Spice Girls to end the night.

Room Crawl

One of our favorite things to do, and we actually did it three times throughout the lockdown, is a Room Pub Crawl. Each room is a different theme and one person is assigned to that room to supply a drink, the decorations, and a challenge or game to complete. Some of the themes we had were everyone dressing as ABC - Anything But Clothes, and then doing the room. Others included:

	Festival	Serve wine in smuggled bags and play a round of music trivia. You play a song on Spotify and the first person to guess it wins, Then it's their turn to pick and it keeps going around. See who guesses the most songs, correctly.
	Winter Wonderland	Served mulled cider, decorate your room with the winter feel, and have your guests tie a tissue box filled with ping pong balls around their waist. The fastest to empty all the balls, wins.
	Bowls Club	Serve beer and have your guests wear a stocking around their waist with a tennis ball in the foot section. Then they need to use this ball to hit another as far as they can. Measure the distance the ball travelled with chalk on carpet.
	Australia	Indoor or outdoor cricket and beers where everyone gets one turn to hit and as many runs as they can.
	Sports Bar	Beers and AFL point scoreboard where we each had to pass the AFL ball and try to score on a board made from sticky tape on a window.
	Ski Bankso	Baileys shots and 'skiing' objects down the staircase to race.
	Underwater	The bathtub was filled and you have to fish out an object for points. Beer snorkel a drink.
	Casino	​Spirits and mixers served with a round of card games which could include Dungeons and Rats, Bullshit, or even Poker.
	Safari	​Where you have to stay in your 'vehicle' (the furniture) and the floor is not safe. You drink a spirit and juice concoction whilst playing a round of True American*.
	Christmas Dinner	​This is our chance for eating - make a cheese board and pass around a 'Pass the Parcel' with the 'gifts' being baby shot bottles or drinking dares.
	College Party	Have a jungle juice/punch made and use it for your traditional college party games - beer pong, flip cup, or rage cage.
	Halloween	Make a spooky drink punch to share, and have one person with a bucket on their head. Everyone else is to throw lollies into the air, not at the person, and the person with the bucket needs to catch as many as they can.

Most rounds were 3 points for first place, 2 for second, and 1 point for third. The exceptions were the team games where everyone on the winning team got one point each, and the losers received none.

After you have completed all 12 rounds, you announce the winners based on the score and the winner receives prize!

House Festival

So Glastonbury 2020 was cancelled, obviously, and one housemate had tickets to go. Because she couldn't, I decided to bring the festival to her, in our very own backyard with 'Ridgebury' (we lived on Ridgeway Drive).

This event is all about the outfits, the stages, and the music.

We all got dressed in our festival 'fits', put our drinks in eskies for authenticity, and cooked festival barbecue-style food - hot dogs, burgers, chips, etc.

The house was divided into two main stages, as it was all we had space for. One was indoors on the TV with this YouTube playlist, so it looked like the stars were on stage.

YouTube playlist:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLATildfpFpPRw69scVNvAeHiYP5bzUugp&si=1FsgzXZlce_67BRm 

The other playlist was played through a speaker in the backyard. You can access the playlist here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6ZWSCVLq76dDGWoLuYR0m4?si=19f85208cb394830 

Games played throughout the festival included cup games, (i.e. beer pong, flip cup, stack a cup), a housemate made a very own snakes and ladders board on a piece of wood. There was lots of dancing in the inside stage, as well.

Then, like most festivals, we ended in another state on the couches just sharing good vibes.

Backyard Olympics

First, everyone chooses a country they want to represent and dresses according to their national flag's colours. For food, everyone had to make a dish relating to their country to eat throughout the day.

To start the day, you watch the latest Olympics Opening Ceremony with your opening drink.

To keep score for the event, you'll need a whiteboard or blackboard, (we used whiteboard markers on our fridge).

So everyone knew what was going on, I also had the schedule and how to win up on the board. It looked something like this:

1	AQUATICS	Elimination Flip Cup: If you lose the round, you're out. Play until last man standing.
2	ATHLETICS	Backyard Bowls: Play a few rounds of bowls where you're eliminated until there is a winner with a person who is the closest to the jack.
3	VOLLEYBALL	Timed Volleyball Match: divided into even teams, can use a rope between trees or something as the net. Play for 10-15 minutes with a timer and see which team gets the most points.
4	BADMINTON	Cricket Match: Every person gets a turn to bat. They get out once, that's it. Winner got the most runs on their turn.
5	TENNIS	​Elimination Tennis:
6	WRESTLING	​Hula-Hooping: Time each participant to see who can hula the longest.
7	ARCHERY	​Make. Aim. Fire: You have 2 minutes to make a paper airplane, then you take it in turns to throw your airplane and measure the distance it travels.
8	TABLE TENNIS	​Table Tennis Elimination:
9	GYMNASTICS	Twister: All compete in a match, last man standing wins.
10	BOXING	​Card Game: We played our favourite at the time called "F*ck". If you google you can buy it, and it's one that you have to say the word, not the colour of the card that appears.
11	FENCING	​Rage Cage: I like to call this one 'Slap a Bitch' but you don't actually slap a bitch. You can learn how to play it here.
12	CYCLING

Most rounds were 3 points for first place, 2 for second, and 1 point for third. The exceptions were the team games where everyone on the winning team got one point each, and the losers received none.

After you have completed all 12 rounds, you announce the winners based on the score and the winner receives prize!

If you have tried anything like this, reach out, let me know what you did and how it went! I love a good house party, and even better when it has a theme, costumes and games you all have to compete in.

Keep learning, keep exploring

• B x