Christmas Party Toast: What to Say to Friends and Neighbors

The short version: a Christmas party toast at home is for a standing, chatty room, so it should take less than a minute. Wait until most people have arrived and have a glass, turn the music down, say why you're glad they came, name one specific thing about this party or this crowd, and raise a glass. Six short toasts for hosts and guests are below, including an annual party, a first party in a new house, and a sweater party.

A house party is a different room from a dinner table. Nobody is sitting down. Half the guests are in the kitchen, a few are on the porch, and somebody's kid is running a lap through the living room every forty seconds. People arrived at different times, and some of them have never met. That changes what a good toast sounds like. It has to be shorter, louder, and easier to follow from the next room.

If you're hosting Christmas dinner instead of a party, the Christmas toast guide covers the table. If it's a work party, the office holiday party toast guide is the one you want.

Who gives the toast

Usually the host. It's your house and your guest list, and a quick thank-you from you is the only toast the party needs. If two people are hosting, pick one to talk and let the other stand next to them holding a glass. Two hosts taking turns sounds rehearsed in a way a living room doesn't need.

A guest can toast the hosts too, and at a party that's been running for years, a guest's toast is often the one people remember. The rule for guests is simple: go after the host, or if the host isn't planning to say anything, ask them first. "Mind if I say a quick thank-you before people start leaving?" takes five seconds and keeps you from stepping on their moment.

If nobody plans to speak, nobody has to. Plenty of good parties never have a toast. But if you've been asked, or you've been wanting to say something, here's how to do it well.

When to do it

Not at the door rush. In the first half hour, people are still arriving, taking off boots, and hunting for a place to put the bottle they brought. Anything you say then gets said again three times to the people who just walked in.

Aim for about an hour in, when most of the guest list is there and nearly everyone has a drink. Some natural moments:

• When the main food comes out. People drift toward the table anyway, so the room gathers itself.
• After the last big group arrives. If a carload of friends always shows up late, wait for them.
• Before the first people leave. Families with small kids often go early. If you want them to hear it, don't wait until ten.

Tell one or two friends a few minutes ahead so they can help collect the room. Then do it before you lose your nerve.

Getting a standing room's attention

Tapping a glass works at a seated dinner. At a house party it usually turns into ten seconds of clinking while the kitchen ignores you and someone near you winces. Try this instead:

1. Turn the music down. Not off, just down. The drop in volume does half the work, because people notice when the room changes.
2. Stand a little higher, in a spot between rooms. The bottom stair, the step down into the living room, the doorway to the kitchen. You want both rooms to see you.
3. Say one plain line, then wait. "Can I borrow everybody for one minute?" Say it at normal volume, twice if you need to. Then stop talking until the side conversations stop. It takes longer than feels comfortable.
4. Have a friend in each room. They can wave people in from the kitchen and the porch. This is the single most useful trick for a house party.

Don't start until the room is quiet. If you begin while people are still talking, the back half of the house will hear only "and that's why we love you all" and wonder what they missed.

How short to go

Under a minute, and closer to 40 seconds is better. People are standing, holding a plate and a glass with no free hand, and the ones in the doorway can't quite hear. At a relaxed pace, 40 seconds is around 90 words. That's three or four short paragraphs.

Read yours aloud with a timer, or paste it into the speech length calculator. If it runs long, cut the middle, not the ending.

A shape that works for a mixed crowd

Christmas parties at home are rarely one group. Old friends, people from the street, a coworker or two, a neighbor's visiting parents, someone's new partner who knows nobody, and kids underfoot. Your toast has to make sense to all of them without needing an inside joke explained.

1. Thanks, in one line. "Thank you for coming out on a cold night" covers everyone.
2. One specific thing anyone can see. The pile of coats, the sweater you're wearing, the house you just moved into, the fact that it's the twelfth year. Pick something the newest guest in the room can understand without a backstory.
3. A turn toward the people. What that detail says about this crowd. One or two sentences.
4. Glasses up and a short last line that calls back to your detail. Then let the music come back up.

The test for a mixed room is whether a person who arrived twenty minutes ago would get it. If the funniest line depends on a camping trip in 2017, save it for the people who were there.

If you're a guest thanking the host

A guest's toast at a party has one job: make the hosts feel seen in front of their friends. The best way to do that is one small, true story about something they did, not a list of their virtues.

Good material is usually something the host did without thinking about it. They introduced you to someone who became a good friend. They kept a spare toothbrush for the friend who always missed the last train. They make the same dip every year because you once said you liked it. One of those, told plainly, is worth more than "the most generous people I know."

Keep it shorter than the host's toast if they gave one. And don't make the hosts respond. Raise the glass, say their names, and let them get back to their party.

An annual party with a history

If this is the eighth or fifteenth year, the history is your material, but treat it lightly. A good annual-party toast picks one thing that has been there since the start and lets the room fill in the rest. The cork mark on the ceiling, the year the power went out, the neighbor who has never missed one.

Two cautions. First, there are always new people at a long-running party, so explain your one piece of history in a sentence. Second, resist counting off the years one by one. Nobody wants the full archive. If someone who used to come has died or moved away, a single sentence is enough, and the Christmas toast after a loss guide has more on how to say it.

A first party in a new house

The first party in a new place is mostly a thank-you for coming to see it. Don't give the tour in the toast. Mention one funny or true thing about moving in, then say why you wanted these people to be the first ones through the door. If neighbors you've just met are there, name the street or the building so they know they're included.

Ugly sweater and theme parties

At a theme party, the theme is a gift to the toaster. Everyone can see it, and everyone is in on it. Make the joke about your own sweater, or the theme as a whole, rather than anyone else's outfit. Some people went all in and some people wore a red shirt and hoped for the best, and both should feel welcome. One laugh about your sweater, then turn to the people. The funny Christmas toast guide has more on keeping jokes aimed at the right target.

Christmas, holidays, and a room of mixed faiths

A neighborhood party or a party for friends often has people of several faiths and plenty of people with none. You don't need to fix the wording so much as pay attention to who is standing in front of you.

• Use the name on the invitation. If you called it a Christmas party, say Christmas. If you called it a holiday party, say holiday. Switching mid-toast just draws attention to the word.
• Toast the people. "To everyone who came out tonight" asks nobody to believe anything.
• Don't make the wording into a speech. No lecture about what the season is really about, and no jokes about people who say "Happy Holidays." Either one puts some of your guests in an awkward spot.
• If someone in the room celebrates something else this month, you don't need to list it. A warm, general welcome works better than a roll call of holidays that misses one.

What to skip

• The guest list as a thank-you list. Thank everyone at once. Naming twelve people means forgetting the thirteenth.
• Inside jokes the newcomers can't follow. If half the room needs it explained, it isn't a toast line.
• Anything about who drank what. Not even gently, and not at a party where people are still drinking.
• Politics and street disputes. No jokes about the parking, the leaf blower, or the HOA vote. Some of the people involved are holding a drink six feet away.
• Announcements. If you're moving or engaged, tell people. Don't tuck it into a thank-you.
• Card lines. "Merry and bright" and "the most wonderful time of the year" slide right past people. The cliché detector will catch them in a draft.

6 Christmas party toasts you can adapt

Names are placeholders. Timings assume about 130 words a minute. Keep the shape and use your own detail.

For the host, about an hour in (about 40 seconds)

Can I borrow everybody for one minute? Kitchen too.

When I went upstairs a little while ago, I couldn't see our bed anymore. It's under about forty coats. There's a parka in there I'm pretty sure has been at every party since we moved in, and I still don't know whose it is.

That pile is my favorite part of the night. It means you all came out in the cold to stand in our living room with no place to sit. Thank you.

Raise whatever you're holding. To all of you, and good luck finding your coat.

Why it works: everyone in the room has seen the coat pile, so the newest guest gets the joke, and the last line calls back to it.

For a guest thanking the hosts (about 45 seconds)

This will be short. Delphina and Grigor don't know I'm doing this.

Nine years ago I came to this party knowing exactly two people, and both of them were in the kitchen arguing about cheese. Delphina took me by the elbow, walked me over to a stranger, and said, "This is Torsten. He also refuses to own a microwave." Then she left.

Torsten and I have been friends ever since. That's what happens at this house. They introduce you to someone, and nine years later you're still talking.

Glasses up. To Delphina and Grigor.

Why it works: one small thing the hosts did years ago says more about them than any list of compliments, and the friend it produced is standing right there.

For the host of a long-running annual party (about 50 seconds)

One minute, and then the music comes back up.

For the new folks, look straight up, above the lamp. That dark spot on the ceiling is from a cork at the very first one of these parties. Ingram opened the bottle, it hit the ceiling, and he said, "Well, now we have to do this again next year." We've painted that room twice since. We paint around the spot.

This is year fourteen. Some of you have been here for every one, and some of you got here tonight. Either way, you're part of it now.

To all of you, and to the spot on the ceiling.

Why it works: one mark on the ceiling holds the whole history, it's explained in a sentence for the new people, and nobody has to hear a year-by-year recap.

For the host of a first party in a new house (about 45 seconds)

Thank you for finding us. I know it wasn't easy.

The family who lived here before us were here for thirty-one years, and their name is still on the mailbox. So if you stood on the porch tonight wondering if you had the right house, you did. We are not the Haverkamps. We're working on it.

Some of you we've known forever, and some of you live across the street and met us three weeks ago when the moving truck blocked your driveway. We're glad you all came.

To our first party here, and to new names on the mailbox.

Why it works: the mailbox is a real, funny problem every guest ran into, and it turns into a welcome to the neighbors in the room.

For the host of an ugly sweater party (about 40 seconds)

Before anyone asks, yes, this reindeer has five legs.

My aunt Wilhelmina knitted this sweater for me in 1998. She ran out of brown yarn partway through and used the rest of it on a leg. She has never once explained it, and I've never once asked.

Thank you for coming, and for taking the theme so seriously. Some of you are wearing working lights. Some of you are wearing a red shirt and hoping nobody notices. Both are welcome here.

To all of you, and to the fifth leg.

Why it works: the host makes his own sweater the joke, compliments everyone who dressed up and everyone who didn't, and ends on the sweater.

For the host of a holiday party with a mix of faiths (about 45 seconds)

Can I have everybody for a minute? Thank you.

If you came in the front door, you saw the sign. Our daughter Brisa made it. It says "Happy Hollidays," with two Ls, and when we offered to fix it, she said no, because two Ls means more holidays.

I think she's right. In this room tonight there are people celebrating Christmas, people celebrating something else, and people mostly celebrating that it's Friday. All of it counts here.

So raise whatever you've got. To more holidays, with two Ls.

Why it works: a child's spelling mistake makes the welcome for everyone, so nobody has to give a speech about the word holiday.

Delivering it

• Hold your glass the whole time. It tells the room this is a toast and it will be short.
• Memorize the first line and the last line. The middle can be a card or your phone. Nobody minds at a house party.
• Speak to the doorway, not the people closest to you. The ones in the next room are the ones who can't hear.
• Keep going if a kid runs through. Wait a second, smile, and pick up where you were. Everyone has seen a kid before.
• Bring the music back up right after. It ends the toast cleanly and gives people permission to start talking again.

If you'd like to practice, The Room lets you play your toast to a table of six guests and see how it lands, and Rehearsal Mode will tell you if you're rushing. For a different first line, try the opening lines page, or write a toast around your own party's details. If the party runs late, the New Year's Eve toast guide is next.