I'm a pretty big fan of the Olympic games - both summer and winter. There is something about the whole world coming together for this one event that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. While the Winter Olympics may not always be as exciting as the summer games, the opening ceremony is definitely comparable. For the past few games, the opening ceremony has be incredible - so this year, Daniel and I decided to host an opening ceremony watch party with a few friends. We had everyone dress up as different countries and bring a drink or snack that represented their country.
Here was the invitation we sent out via
Paperless Post (I am utterly addicted to PP at this point, no turning back now.) As a follow up, we sent out a reminder email to our olympians including the line, "As always, feel free to bring friends, but leave whiny privileged reporters at home - who needs a finished hotel anyway?"
Daniel and chose to represent Russia. We thought it would make sense for the host house to also be the host country. Here we are with our "Russian" costumes - which included an fur hat from Amazon, a fur neck vest I had hiding in my closet from last Christmas, blue shirts and felt flags that we made. I'm holding a potato because thats a big Russian export and Daniel is being serious (or cold?) because thats how we think Russians are.
For party foods, I tired to stick to things that were either olympic colored or ring shaped. We included a mashed potato bar (again, for the Russian potato thing) I served the toppings in glasses to make the rings.
To make everything a little more festive I also bought flag party picks on Amazon. I'd like everyone to notice that the fruit try includes all the olympic ring colors (the kiwi is hiding behind he pineapple top)
I realize that king cake is not really olympic - but I arranged it in a ring instead of an oval and added the flags so it kind of fit. But really, it's carnival season in Louisiana so there was really no skipping it.
We also picked up a few mini trophies and gold medals to give to our best costume, best drink/snack, and best overall country:
For decorations, we put up a few streamers to act as a photo area and added some quick little home made construction paper pennants to the mantle.
During the actual ceremony we played opening ceremony bingo, which included fantastic items like children singing or fur hats. We also found a pretty decent drinking game to pair with the ceremony online. The best rule was defiantly that every time you saw a reference to the Russian space program you had to yell "Sputnik" and drink - lots of laughs on that one.
The winners of our awards came out like so:
Canada, obviously, won best costume. Mostly because they even brought hockey sticks to complete the ensemble. Also, for honorable mention - they brought Canadian maple syrup whiskey to pair with the costumes.
Italy (pictured below missing their third white member to compete the flag) won best cultural snack/drink. Their missing member had a white hat and matching shirt too, very unfortunate that he couldn't make it - we had Taylor stand in to get the full effect in the photo. They brought limoncello and pizza rolls. Really, they were close to taking the whole cake. The pizza rolls were a huge success.
Our overall winner was Spain, which I unfortunately didn't get any pictures of. I stole this one from Facebook, so excuse the mess. Anyway, Spain had a fantastic hat with matching matador cape and he brought a fantastic (and very complicated looking) sangria. Also, this party was basically his idea - so he got bonus points for that.
I'd also like to throw out some honorable mentions, to Japan for their coconut sake, Switzerland for her authentic costume complete with ski lift ticket and ski googles and Scotland for digging up a great kilt in record time.
This may have been one of the most festive parties we have thrown to date. Thank you so much to everyone who came. All of the costumes and cultural beverages were fantastic - gold medals all around. Now, I could get another excuse to use my fantastic vest again if I could just talk someone into throwing a curling watch party - Y'all know it's one of the most exciting winter events! I'll settle for bobsled though. (:
Happy Olympics everyone!
Chelsea Bennett is the Executive Assistant to the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary. Spending most of her days in Downtown Baton Rouge, she is a proud lifelong resident of the city and an LSU grad. A lover of all things southern, she is completely infatuated with the sweet Louisiana life and everything quintessentially “Baton Rouge.” Follow Chelsea on Twitter @GeauxChels
