Love the two tone red on these heels and they are on sale!

Love the detailing of these dainty cut outs in this dress (on sale 50% off)! Also I’m kind of obsessed with these hoop earrings – they are my favorite right now.

It was my first time making the sugar rimmed glasses. The lady at the store gave me a little tip – honey works better than water to get the sugar to stick 🙂

DETAILS: RED CUT-OUT DRESS (ON SALE!) | COLORBLOCK MULE HEELS (ON SALE!) | GOLD HEXAGON HOOP EARRINGS (OBSESSED WITH THESE!) | SILVER WATCH

CODY: BLACK VELVET BLAZER (ON SALE) | WHITE BUTTON DOWN | PLAID TIE  (ALSO GOT THIS ONE)| BLACK DENIM (SIMILAR HERE) | ARGYLE SOCKS

I always love any excuse to get dressed up, so Cody and I are all about throwing holiday parties for friends and family. As hosts, your attire is one of the most important ways for really sealing the deal for your holiday party so it’s important to dress accordingly. A glam dinner party is one celebration guests will always get excited to get a chance to dress up for. I love this red dress (50% off) with the shoulder cut-outs. This is another great red dress for a Christmas party and they also have a lot of really cute green dresses. All their dresses are 50% off right now so you can get your Holiday favorite on sale!

I always like to coordinate with Cody (even more so when we are hosting a get together) so we coordinated our looks together with this plaid tie. I’m also obsessed with this velvet jacket. I’ve been looking for one forever and love this one.

Another must for setting the right mood is a touch of DIY to make the party feel more personal. I’d been wanting to make a DIY ice bucket for an extra festive element to the party. To make your own, get 2 round containers of different sizes. (I used a plastic Red Vines container; you can also use a plastic popcorn tin or anything else you can find really – just make sure it’s not glass so it doesn’t crack during the freezing process.) Set the smaller container within the larger and fill the space between the two with distilled water for a clearer end look. Add cranberries and rosemary  (in hindsight, I wish I would have thrown in more cranberries for color). I filled it up about halfway and froze it in phases to keep all the red and green from floating to the top. Repeat again once the first half has frozen through. Once both phases were frozen, I filled the sink with hot water and set the containers in the hot water to melt the sides so I could get the ice bucket our of the container a little easier. Once you are ready to display your ice bucket, set it on a chilled platter to minimize the melting.

Another easy but festive element we incorporated was the gold sugar-rimmed glasses and it was definitely a fun touch. 🙂

There are so many different ways you can celebrate the holidays, whether it’s getting dressed up or going low-key. Instead of sticking to the same holiday themes over and over, here are a few more ideas below.

• Holiday glam
• Color themed (pick a color for everyone to wear)
• Give-back (collecting or making items to donate to charity)
• White Elephant
• Secret Santa
• Family/office dinner party
• Ugly sweater party
• Hot chocolate bar
• Christmas carol karaoke
• Christmas tree decorating party
• Christmas movie marathon

XX, Christine

*Photos by Emmy Lowe. In collaboration with Express.