Ultimate Housewarming Party Ideas During a Pandemic
If you’re planning a housewarming during a pandemic, it can be tricky to know what to do. After all, this is the first time most of us have tried to survive a plague. We’re in uncharted territory.
But just because we’re in the middle of a lockdown doesn’t mean you have to abandon your dreams of having a housewarming party. We know you want to show off your new digs and hopefully get some great housewarming gifts to help turn your house into a home.
So we’ve done some creative thinking and come up with some ultimate housewarming party ideas during a pandemic. If none of them seem right for you, consider meshing a few different ones to create your own hybrid. We’re all just winging it right now anyway.
Before You Plan
The biggest concern about having a housewarming party during a pandemic is safety. By now, the rules should be pretty clear. Frequent handwashing, wearing a mask around others, and keeping six feet apart from other people have been beaten into our heads since COVID-19 hit.
These safety precautions can make it very difficult to host a party where everyone congregates to eat, drink, laugh, and play games. If you have a small place, the challenge is even more difficult.
Homeowners are having to get more creative with ways to host housewarming parties while maintaining proper social precautions. Let’s look at some exciting new housewarming ideas.
Zoom
Zoom has become a popular call service that allows a group of people to talk face to face through a private room from whatever device they prefer.
Once the world shut down, many people started turning to Zoom to communicate for work, school, and casual conversations.
But you may be wondering how Zoom can help you with hosting a housewarming party? Well, instead of all congregating together in your home, you can all connect virtually.
Before your party, record a video walk-through of your home so everyone can have a virtual tour. Send this video, along with an email invite to your upcoming housewarming party. Typically, you should give your guests notice at least three weeks ahead of time.
If you want to find a way to create unity within your housewarming party, you can mail your guests a bottle of wine or a small gift box full of party favors and snacks similar to what you’re using for your housewarming party decorations.
The Week of Housewarming
There are plenty of events that take place over an entire week, like Homecoming, Shark Week, and Fleet Week. Some people even celebrate their birthday for a whole week. So why not take a full week to celebrate your new home?
If you have a lot of friends and family that you want to invite to celebrate your new home, you may find it easier to adhere to proper safety procedures if you divide your guest list into small groups.
You can break your guest list down into small intervals, with no more than five to ten people per party. Schedule your party for a short one-hour session. Then after the party is over, you can clean and sanitize. Then have your next group scheduled to visit one to two hours later.
Or, you could arrange for one small group a day, spaced throughout the week. Depending on your decorations, you could leave them up for the entire week. And you can change your menu to suit your guests, or choose to only serve finger foods or no snacks at all since you’re trying to be safe.
If you want to have some fun with your housewarming week, use housewarming party themes that thump their nose at Corona. There is plenty of humorous COVID decor for any special occasion, including housewarming.
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Take it Outdoors
Even though people will be coming to your housewarming party to celebrate your new house, that doesn’t mean you all have to stay cooped up inside. Celebrate your outdoor living space, too, by holding the party outside.
Social distancing is a lot easier when you have a large open area to congregate. If you have room outside, your yard is the perfect place to host your COVID housewarming party.
To promote extra safety, set up separate stations for food, drinks, and presents. Hang up signs reminding everyone to maintain a six-foot distance or recommend one at a time. Disposable dishes and utensils are more sanitary and more comfortable to clean up than using real plates.
Use your imagination to set up social distancing reminders, such as poles, garland, or ribbon. Make dinner time into a game by having everyone assigned a number. A random number is drawn out of a hat, and that person gets to come up and get their food.
Supply gloves so no one has to touch the serving utensils with their bare hands. And individual hand sanitizing wipes or gel to clean their hands before eating.
A housewarming isn’t complete without games. Some COVID-19 friendly housewarming party game ideas include cornhole, horseshoes, badminton, frisbee, and baseball. All of these are great activities to encourage friendly fun while still social distancing.
Offer tours of your home to small groups, and provide face masks for everyone before they come inside. Leave all your doors and curtains open, so no one has to touch knobs or light switches.
Drive-By Housewarming
If you’re dying to show off your new home, but you don’t want to have a revolving group of people traveling in and out of your house, you can set up a drive-by housewarming shower. Drive-by housewarming shows are great housewarming party ideas for apartments.
Once you’ve moved into your home and have it looking the way you want, take pictures of every room. Next, do some research and find a company that can print out customized brochures. Use the images of your rooms and provide some details you’d like your family and friends to know.
Place these brochures on a table in your front yard, along with goodie bags of things you would have given if you had a real party. Invite your friends and family to drive by, pick up a brochure, snacks or food, and leave their presents. Make sure you have separate tables set up.
If you set your stations up correctly, no one will need to get out of their vehicle. But if they do, you’ll still be social distancing enough that you’ll all be safe. You can even offer sanitizer at both your food and present stations.
Not comfortable receiving a gift that has been touched by other people? Set up an Amazon wishlist so guests can send presents right to your door.
I think it’s safe to say no one could have predicted that 2020 would be such a stressful, confusing year. The COVID-19 outbreak has caused a massive upset in our lives in multiple ways. We are now having to come up with creative ways to gather together to celebrate significant life events while being safe and social distancing.
We’ve provided you with a few fun housewarming ideas to use during a pandemic. Things may be chaotic and scary, but that doesn’t mean we have to keep putting our lives on hold. If you’ve just bought a house, a housewarming party is a sacred event you don’t want to miss. Shop all our personalized gifts at A Gift Personalized!
