Every month, we highlight a mystery description and pictures that someone has emailed us for a FREE party!!! Here is December’s winner! Find out how to enter and win yourself here!
My husband and I love the Christmas season and decided to kick it off with a party. We hosted a murder mystery party earlier this year and everyone had such a great time, they couldn’t wait for us to do it again. Hmmmm, why not make it a Ho Ho Homicide?? We got together a list of potential guests and had about 30. We ended up with 25 characters and a few guests that wanted to come but not participate.
I printed the invitations and envelopes using the great templates provided. They looked like they came straight from the north pole! As soon as we had our headcount we assigned characters so everyone could start working on costumes. I found the easiest way to do it was draw names randomly.
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Now it was time to work on some fun “props.” My husband is so creative and artistic, it wasn’t long before we had some reindeer and a sleigh. He made a reindeer barn panel for our front porch based on one he saw on the website. It came out perfect! He made some lollipops to line the walkway and a really cool gingerbread house. With my usual Christmas lighting outside, the reindeer and candy, the front of the house looked fit for Santa himself!
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We wanted our guests to feel like they were really in the North Pole when they entered the house. We created a grid on the ceiling with invisible thread and strung cotton balls all over to look like a snowstorm! It was a lot of work, but it looked amazing, worth all the effort! I replaced my recessed light bulbs with these great snowshower bulbs I found at Target, between them and the hanging cotton snowflakes it looked like a blizzard inside! I ordered a snowy scene backdrop for pictures and we put the sleigh in front. Everyone had fun taking pictures in it. We made a police lineup and printed out the “mug shot” card provided with the party kit, along with some silly saying props. We made the height markers appropriate for elf height, they are some of my favorite pictures! My husband made fake gun ornaments out of foam board and painted them red and green, we put them in the Christmas tree. They were perfect props for the lineup wall!
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We decided to create an elf clubhouse on the back deck. My husband put up a canopy and hung tarps all around, we covered the deck with white fabric. I ordered a couple of bags of “Snowonder” to put out there. It’s really cool stuff, you add water and poof, instant snow! We spread that all around and replaced the outdoor lights with the snowshower bulbs. Again, it really looked like it was snowing! My husband made an abominable snowman out of cardboard that was over six feet tall, we put him out in the clubhouse to greet the guests. There were lots of great pics with him. He made “Christmas lights” using green paper cups, balloons and green string. We found balloon lights on Amazon to put inside them so there were illuminated. I made some celebrity cardboard cutouts for my last party and recycled a couple for this one. I put a Santa suit on Chris Helmsworth and added a Christmas hat to Beyoncé, I put them in the clubhouse as well.
I asked my guests to bring an appetizer or dessert, they had to give their dish a Christmas or “murderous” name. Oh my goodness, we had grandma got run over by a reindeer meatball complete with grandma in the meatballs! We had snowballs, reindeer poop, reindeer food, elf eggs, isle of misfit chicken wings, coal cake, snowman dip….. the list goes on. I made Mrs. Clausmopolitians with coconut rimmed glasses, Santa-sangria, grinch punch, and Spanky’s tipsy elf punch. I rimmed the cocktail glasses with red and green sugar for an extra festive touch.
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Everyone came in costume and ready to play! I was impressed with how they all stayed in character all night! HolidayWishes, the mail carrier of the North Pole, came with her bag of mail all lit up and full of letters for almost all of the guests! The elves and reindeer all looked great. Connie Claus ( who won the best costume), had Christmas lights and ribbon adorning her dress.
We had a “gangsta” style Santa and a sexy Mrs. Claus.
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We made a party playlist on Pandora with all fun Christmas hits that played all night. My husband downloaded a gunshot sound on his phone that would sound through the speakers as the music was playing. It was perfect! The lights went out…. bang, the victim went down! We did a “chalk” outline of the body and the investigation began. We had fun trying to figure out who it was, no one guessed correctly!
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For prizes for “dressed to kill” “Mr./Mrs. Moneybags” and “Drama Queen “ I gave a gift bag with a Christmas ornament, a magnet I made with the smoking gun on a Christmas ball (I printed from the Ho Ho Homicide page) and a bottle of wine. I also made gift bags for all of our guests. I printed copies of the logo and glued them onto red bags. I filled them with a Christmas pencil and notepad, a candle I put the Ho Ho Homicide logo on, a silly Christmas magnet, some candy canes, and chocolate pretzels. As they left, our guests couldn’t thank us enough for such a fun night.
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This was our second murder mystery party, and it won’t be our last!
