haute holiday

A graphic silhouette is hotter than haute, and in keeping with the season, we present our sophisticated chandelier, holiday tree, reindeer and Santa in his sleigh against a rich baroque background. With a touch of Christmas red mixed with black and white, celebrate the end of the year and the beginning of the holiday season. Drink champagne and eat cake - the perfect way to toast another year's successes and sample the flavours of the season.

INVITATION

Damask Black and White with touches of red and green
Designed by Paper&Cake this invitation together with the rest of the damask tablescape collection, is the perfect option for a festive party, whether it is an office end of the year cocktail party or an intimate dinner party for friends, the design is pure glamour!

Fancy Coming Over?
Luscious individual invites to send to your office colleagues or friends and family available from the IN GOOD COMPANY SHOP. Make your party even more special by purchasing After Dark invitations with phrases like:
Would love to see you!
Are you free?
Must get together!
Fancy coming over?

Encourage your guests to dress the part, and your décor will be even more effective, by stating on the invitation a Black and White dress code.

INTRODUCTION

Masquerade
Divine disguises for the drama queen in everyone. Magnificent masquerade melodrama for a spectacular end of year cocktail or dinner party. Get your guests in the festive spirit by greeting them at the door with one of these glossy black or silver ornate paper eye masks from the IN GOOD COMPANY SHOP.

DISPLAY

Courtly Candelabras
No chandelier, no problem! Add some decadence to your dinner party by hanging these stunning decorative paper candelabras for theatrical effect. Simply open the honeycomb tissue circle to create the central feature, from our SHOP.

DECORATION

TREE
For a show-stopping tree, decorate a white fir tree in our gorgeous imported black and white Christmas tree ornaments. Our collection has numerous bits and baubles and includes: black wire chandeliers with dripping crystals, felt flocks, black and white baubles with intricate patterns in paint, glitter or felt, or quite simply plain shiny or dull baubles.

TABLE

Little Black Dress(ing)
Dress a designer tablescape with black tablecloths, black silk runners with silver embossed baroque silhouettes and black linen napkins. This will let classic white contemporary crockery stand out against the black linen. Available for hire.

Pretty Paper
The Paper&Cake Collection extends to matching paper napkin rings, place cards and wine tags.

After Dark Classy Canapé Sticks
Pick Me! Our classy canapé sticks will add a sense of fun and occasion to any dinner party...

Centre Stage in Minutes
For a quick centerpiece, place black, white, red and green Christmas baubles in glass vases of all different shapes and sizes.

MENU
The focus of such a celebration must be the champagne and Christmas cake. In addition, serve other Christmas inspired refreshments and appetizers.

Bubble Over
Nothing beats a Champagne tower for old-world elegance - so long as you construct it so it doesn't fall down!

MATERIALS
A sturdy table
Coupe (or round) Champagne glasses
Champagne, sparkling wine, or sparkling cider

DIRECTIONS
Find a sturdy, steady table on which you can build your fountain.
Figure out how many glasses you'll need in order to both accommodate your guests and ensure that your tower doesn't tumble. Each square layer must become proportionately smaller than the last, so if your base is five rows of five glasses, the next layer must be four by four, and so on. A standard-size Champagne bottle will provide about five glasses of bubbly.
Get coupe Champagne glasses, which are the old-fashioned round ones. Use plastic Champagne glasses if you're nervous about your tower collapsing.
Evenly align each glass in the bottom layer so that they touch each other, creating a diamond-shaped space between glasses.
Place the next layer of glasses so that the glass stems are centered over the diamond-shaped spaces.
Repeat until just one glass stands on the top.
Pour Champagne into the top glass, and continue pouring until the Champagne has trickled down to fill every glass.
Gather your guests, hand everyone a glass-starting with the one on top and moving on down-and offer a toast. Cheers!

Fruitiness
The tradition of the rich fruit Christmas cake grew during the 19th century when the elegant and aristocratic Twelfth Night cake merged with the classless boiled Christmas pudding. It was the done thing back in those days to serve a cake on the twelfth night after Christmas, a Christian holy day commemorating the visit by the Three Wise Men to the Christ child.

Display a Christmas fruitcake of wedding proportions! Serve slices to your guests during the party, but also fill cake boxes for guests to take home, and enjoy throughout the festive season - and it will last right up until the 12th night, and beyond, the question is will your guest's resistance?

Recipe Card
Give your guests these Paper&Cake cards with a recipe for Christmas cake.

FUN AND GAMES

Advent Raffle
Hold a Christmas raffle, either by selling tickets to raise funds for a charity, or alternatively simply hand these out to your guests for just the fun of it. Print our number sheets, twice - one to hand out to guests, and another to use for the draw. Have the host, at an appointed time when all guests are gathered, do the raffle.

Table Talk
Introduce some lively conversation and new topics to your cocktail and dinner party. Play any way you like: for cocktail parties hand out a few to each guest as they arrive, for dinner parties between courses have each person ask their partner or better still divide into teams, and start thinking about "What would be your desert island luxury?"

FAVOURS

Damask Pillow Boxes
Make your own little treat boxes, by printing these pillow boxes from Paper&Cake. A good idea is to add the typical cracker goodies, something like a small gift, joke card and in the case where you are having a raffle, their lucky number(s).

Cocktail Crackers
The perfect all in one favour to give your guests as they arrive at the party are our After Dark crackers. Especially as these crackers include a paper glass marker so everyone can identify their drinking glass. Contents also include a black tissue hat, pack of trivia cards, and a smart silver gift.

PRINT • CUT • PARTY!
The downloadable tablescape featured in this article is designed by Paper&Cake. But there is more, In Good Company has 5 different tablescape themes for you to choose from:
HAUTE HOLIDAY - a Christmas themed one similar to the Damask
CANDY CHRISTMAS
COUNTRY KITCHEN
WHITE CHRISTMAS
THE FIRST NOEL

Coming soon to GOODIES/CHRISTMAS/PAPER.