How To Create The Ultimate Christmas Party Playlist
December is well and truly here and that means it’s time to… check your Spotify Wrapped, duh!
Not just that, it’s time to celebrate the holiday season in style with a party playlist.
Whether you’re having a get together in your student accommodation or heading home to wow your family with your tunes, you need to read our guide with tips and tricks to making a great playlist.
Playlists are something you really need to get right, or you’ll have people moaning and throwing out the dreaded “skip this song” every few minutes.
Don’t worry, you’ll have the festive cheer flowing with our help.
After all, what’s a party without a banging playlist to get everyone in the mood?!
Tips To Make A Christmas Party Playlist
These 8 tips will make sure that your Christmas party is filled with good vibes, and will ensure that you don’t get kicked off from the aux!
Without further ado, here’s how you can be a musical genius when it comes to creating playlists for a festive get-together…
1. Choose Your Streaming Service
Unless you’re going all out with a vinyl player or a set of DJ decks, you’re gonna need a streaming service to curate the ultimate holiday-season playlist.
Thinking about which streaming service you’re going to use is the first step to any playlist really, not just a Christmas-themed one.
So, have a think about whether you’re going to use Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube or Amazon Music.
For us, we highly recommend using a platform which you have a premium subscription for, as no one wants the playlist to get interrupted by ads, it’ll ruin the festive spirit!
Spotify is a great choice as they offer a student deal, and you can make collaborative playlists so everyone can add to your Christmas playlist.
Although, you should use a music streaming service that you’re most confident with, and the one that works best for you!
2. Make Time To Create Your Playlist
To make the ultimate Christmas party playlist you need to dedicate at least a good hour or so to get it boxed off.
We’re not saying you should put off doing uni work to make your playlist or overthink what songs to include, but just spend a little while choosing your songs, naming your playlist and maybe even adding a cheeky photo to it.
It’s always good fun making a playlist, it’s like you’re the DJ of the party.
Just make sure you make it fairly long so it will last all night, we’re talking about 30-50 songs.
As we said, you can make a collaborative playlist to save yourself time and get all the other party-goers adding to it!
We recommend adding some bangers for the first few songs of the playlist to get the good vibes flowing from the get-go.
In the run up to Christmas, you could have a listen to your playlist to see how it flows.
This way you’ll have time to remove songs that don’t really work or add more songs which will make the playlist better.
3. Variety Is Key
Next when creating the ultimate Christmas party playlist is to have a variety of music included.
The thing is, a playlist is entirely subjective by the music taste of those that are listening to it so it’s hard to determine whether yours is ‘good’ or not.
Whilst you might think your playlist is amazing, others could think the opposite when it comes to the big day.
We recommend thinking about everyone’s music tastes before curating your playlist and throwing in a mixture of songs from different genres, so it’s diverse and there’s something in there for everyone to enjoy.
This way if you think about your audience and include a variety of different music, everyone will think it’s great and you won’t have anyone pulling a resting Grinch face!
Plus, if you have a mixture of age groups then there needs to be songs from a variety of eras, we’re sure the older folks in your fam won’t enjoy WAP being played too much.
4. Don’t Go Overboard With Christmas Songs
You might be thinking it’s a Christmas playlist, of course you need festive sing-along hits like ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ and ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’.
You’re right, you definitely do need to add some absolute classic Christmas songs, but don’t overwhelm it as they’re like Marmite, you either love them or you hate them.
After a while, the Christmas songs will start to get a bit boring, especially if you’ve heard them on the radio and listened to them for half of December, by the time you get to the 25th you’ll probably have a few Scrooges who are fed up.
So, it’s important to throw in some regular party tunes and have a comfortable amount of Xmas tunes!
5. Throw In Some Personal Songs
It’s important to remember that this isn’t your own personal playlist to listen to with your Air-pods on in the gym, or to listen to whilst you’re in the shower.
This is a playlist that multiple people are going to be listening to, so don’t just add all your favourite songs or guilty pleasures, have a think about your guests and which songs they go crazy for.
If your Mum’s got a particular song that will get her on the dancefloor and singing from the top of her lungs (It’s gotta be Sweet Caroline) then make sure to add this to the playlist.
Or, if you’ve got a few personal songs that mean a lot to your family or friends, make sure to include them into your playlist – it is the holidays after all.
Of course, don’t be afraid to add a few songs that you personally like, but think about those attending and what will get them in the party mood!
We’re sure people will appreciate you spending time thinking about their music tastes and adding in meaningful songs.
6. Shuffle Or No Shuffle?
Generally speaking, a playlist is normally in order and organised from start to finish, unless of course you choose to shuffle all the songs to get a random selection playing.
It’s important to try and think about whether or not you want to organise your playlist and let it flow from song to song throughout the night, or if you’re just wanting to surprise your guests and yourself with the tunes!
We would recommend organising your playlist so that you can start off with some chilled songs as the party is just starting.
Then as the night goes on and people have had more drinks or gotten more lively, then the real tunes can start to get played a little further into the playlist.
If you choose to put shuffle on, that’s fine, each to their own but it can create a bit of a clutter and anything could come up in any order ruining the groove of the party a little.
That’s just us though, if you enjoy being surprised of what song will come on next, then absolutely choose to shuffle your Christmas party playlist, it’s YOUR playlist after all!
7. Get Creative
There’s already tons of playlists out there, and if you didn’t feel like making your own you could quite easily just search up a Christmas Party playlist and have tons to choose from.
Instead of making a playlist which is very same old same old, get creative and think outside the box when curating your party soundtrack.
What songs are popular at the minute? What throwbacks will people love?
Search for new songs, old songs, listen to other playlists and gain inspiration to create your own masterpiece that’ll really impress your party guests.
8. Read The Room
The last step in ensuring you have a buzzing soundtrack for your Christmas party is to read the room on the day.
What we mean by that, is to see how people are feeling and whether they’re enjoying the songs that are being played.
If you’ve ever been to a party and thought that the music choice was a bit out of place, bear this in mind and think about whether the playlist is really fitting the vibe.
If you think the atmosphere could do with some more uplifting tunes or some karaoke anthems, don’t be afraid to queue some songs on your playlist.
Remember, a Christmas party is meant to be a good time for everyone.
So, don’t shy away from asking people for song requests to include an eclectic mix of songs.
You can always go back to your playlist later after playing some songs that your guests have suggested!
If people are really not feeling your playlist (we hope not) then try to have a plan B playlist that you can play just in case.
Like a playlist full of crowd-pleasers that are hard to disappoint, every get-together during the festive season has gotta have the likes of Rockin Around The Christmas Tree, Wonderful Christmastime, Jingle Bell Rock, and Santa Baby!
There you have it, hopefully these tips have been key to making the ultimate Christmas playlist and will get your party buzzing until it’s time to say goodnight.
What’re you waiting for? There’s only a few weeks to go until the annual festivities, go make your soundtrack.
Happy-listening everyone!
Now you know how to create the ultimate Christmas party playlist, have a read of our guide on Christmas Food Recipes From #FoodTok To Try.