Keeping the Fun Home Christmas and New Year’s Eve Trends at Party Stores

With a pandemic-led societal shift toward home entertaining, customers are spending more on increasingly lavish and sophisticated parties. “After COVID hit, people were doing more intimate gatherings and decorating even more, because they weren’t going anywhere,” observed Amber Jensen, manager at Party Depot in Brookings, S.D.

Around Christmas, Party Depot sees huge sales of wreaths, garlands and other greenery that people use to decorate their homes. Light-up trees and ornaments are also top sellers. “We’ve been doing really well with Christmas the last few years. We’re selling more and more décor, especially during the past 4 or 5 years,” noted Jensen.

Overall, winter holiday sales have slowly but steadily increased in recent years at Party Depot. New Year’s Eve tends to attract more last-minute shoppers: “Oh gosh, we’re having a little thing,” customers will tell Jensen, as they scoop up noise makers and other party accessories.

In Mequon, Wis., Manager Glen Victorey said that reduced bar and restaurant spending has translated into bigger budgets for Christmas, Hanukkah and New Year’s Eve shoppers at Elliot’s Partyland. “This is a very Jewish area, and Hanukkah has been bigger and bigger for us,” he noted. Menorah candles are the top holiday décor item, along with blue and white tableware. Elliot’s also sells “lots of silly things to wear” to Hanukkah parties, Victorey noted, such as blue hats, crowns featuring Stars of David, or kitschy scarves with latke puns.

At Christmas, Victorey has noticed a décor tendency toward expanding color palettes — lime green instead of forest, for example — as well as the ubiquitous, trendy Buffalo plaid. He’s also noticed party givers opting for themed buffet bars — potatoes, hot chocolate or other basic foods with a dozen or more novelty toppings and stir-ins.

Victorey is among the many party retailers who says New Year’s Eve is hands down the biggest single party-shopping day. “It’s the biggest day of the year for us — in terms of sales, and [in] terms of the amount of customers that come through the door,” he noted. But with everyone from Target to William Sonoma competing with party stores for those shoppers’ dollars, “you have to do