The Christmas Playlist

Music is an essential part of creating the Christmas atmosphere but we realise that it's sometimes tricky to choose the right tracks to put on at the right time. We thought we'd share our pick of the best Christmas songs! 

There are three main times to prepare for:

EATING

CHILLING

PARTYING

EATING

Over the Christmas dinner you want some subtle music. Keep the volume down and choose something that isn't too fast otherwise you'll end up eating to the beat and demolish your turkey in no time!

Here you're just setting the atmosphere, not singing along, so this is a time to play those lesser known tunes.
Why don't you try these classics? 

- Kings College Choir

- Christmas Carols

CHILLING

Whilst the dinner is cooking, your opening presents or relaxing for a moment with a glass of wine, you want some music that will keep everyone upbeat and encourage a little sing along. Choose some recognisable songs like these:

The Christmas Song - Nat King Cole

Little Drummer Boy - Bing Crosby & David Bowie

White Christmas - Michael Buble

Driving Home For Christmas - Chris Rea

Do They Know It's Christmas - Band Aid (Original Version)

Fairytale of New York - The Pogues

Happy Christmas (War is Over) - John Lennon & Yoko Ono

Let It Snow - Frank Sinatra

Silent Night - Frank Sinatra

Walking In The Air - Aled Jones

I Believe In Father Christmas - Greg Lake

We also feel that the whole of Michael Buble's christmas album will work well for this time! 

PARTYING

For a proper Christmas or New Year party, you can't avoid the classic and cheesy tracks for getting people moving. Mix some old Christmas songs with new chart tracks to please everyone. Try these:

Stayin' Alive - Bee Gees 

Love Shack - B-52

Fireworks - Katy Perry

Prince Charming - Adam and the Ants

Tiger Feet - Mud

One Love - Bob Marley

Can't Get You Out Of My Head - Kylie Minogue

Here Comes the Rain - The Cult

Do You Think I'm Sexy - Rod Stewart

Dancing Queen - Abba

Shaft - Isaac Hayes

Sex Machine - James Brown

Jean Jeanie - David Bowie

Maggie May - Rod Stewart

Doom & Gloom - Rolling Stones

Nine Lives - ACDC

Give it 2 me - Madonna

Gangnam Style - PSY

Thriller - Michael Jackson

Alive - Pearl Jam

Time Warp - Rocky Horror

Into The Groove - Madonna

Superstylin' - Groove Armada

Tainted Love - Soft Cell

Praise You - Fatboy Slim

I'm Still Standing - Elton John

Night Fever - Bee Gees

Devil Gate Drive - Suzi Quatro

A Little Bit - Liberty X

Baby One More Time - Britney Spears

Bang A Gong - T Rex

Bad - Michael Jackson

Purchasing

It can be expensive to buy every track individually, so why not make a playlist on youtube or try Spotify? For £5 you can play anything you want/as long as you want without any adverts interrupting but you do need to be connected to the internet unless you want to pay a bit more. 

The Radio

Sometimes we forget about putting the radio on, but it's got some fantastic shows and on Christmas day there's normally back-to-back music. Why not take a minute to look at the radio listings before the family arrives? An obvious choice but it's not Christmas without a dog-eared copy of the Radio Times hanging around.

How To Make A Christmas Garland Decoration

Christmas Garland

We Are Really Excited To Share Our First Tutorial With You!

We know that it's important to save money where you can, especially around the Christmas period, that's why we are showing you how to make an easy Christmas decoration. We're sure you'll fall in love and actually keep it up all year round! 

We recommend reading the whole tutorial before having a go yourself. If you do have any problems, get in touch and we will try to help you out. We would love to see your attempts so please share your photos on Facebook or Twitter and we may place them in a blog in the future. 

Pop in our shop in Bristol for the Crepe Paper and don't forget that our online party shop will be launching in the new year! 

You will need:

Crepe Paper - Available in a huge variety of colours at Flingers for £1.39. We chose a festive silver.

Wire - We got ours from a florists but you can use any you might have around at home, it doesn't matter how thick or thin it is as long as you can bend it easily. 

Wire Cutters - If you've got quite thin wire, scissors might be sufficient.

Scissors - For cutting the crepe paper.

A Ruler - For measuring 

String - If you want to hang them up like we have. 

Step 1

Cut your wire into 15cm strips. We cut 10 because you can make 10 flowers out of the crepe paper we used.

Step 2

Take the crepe paper which is already folded into a long rectangle and cut along the two long sides, placing one of the scissor blades inside the folds of paper and the other blade on the outside. Repeat on both sides until you have two piles of long rectangular paper, 5 or 6 sheets in each pile is sufficient.

Step 3

Cut 10cm long strips until you've used all the paper. This should give you 10 piles of paper squares.

Step 4

Take one pile of square paper and fold about 1cm of paper over. It's best to go with the grain of the fabric or just try both ways and see what folds easiest. Then turn the paper over and fold another 1cm so you make a zig-zag fold of paper, continue doing this till you've used all the paper. Hold it tight as it can easily pop open.

Step 5

Get a piece of 15cm wire and, with 3cm excess, bend the metal around the folded paper right in the middle. This will hold it in place. Twist the excess around the other bit of wire and it should hold by itself.

Step 6

Take your scissors and cut off the edges to create points at either side. This will give your flower more of a relaxed edge. It's sometimes quite hard to cut through so many layers so sharp scissors are best.

Step 7

Now we start to see it coming to life! Ensuring the wire is tight enough to hold it in place, open up one side of the paper and then separate each leaf of paper. This is the tricky part as sometimes you have to be quite forceful to get the paper to separate towards the base where it's held by the wire. Just be patient and remember the paper can rip quite easily.

Step 8

Keep separating each leaf until you've done both sides of the flower and continue to do it to the rest of the paper until you've got 10 lovely flowers ready to put on the garland.

Don't fancy putting your flowers on a garland? Just keep them as they are and put them in a vase or bend the wire to attach to anything around the home.

For the garland... 

We used some rustic brown string, but use ribbon/white string or anything you fancy! 

Step 1

Cut the string to approximately 250cm long - suitable for 10 flowers.

Step 2

25cm in, place the string over the top of the wire on one flower. We need to attach the flower to the string so simply twist the wire around the string a few times. This is where the thinner the wire, the easier it is. Be careful of the edge of the wire that has been twisted round as it's normally sharp. Cut off excess wire.

Step 3

Continue this process every 25cm. Don't worry how messy you are attaching the flowers, as long as they won't fall off the string - it's fine. Just make sure the paper covers any joins.

Step 4

We tied little loops into either end of the string so we could easily hang it up.

And you've made a beautiful christmas decoration!

We love it alongside our Paper Bell Christmas Decoration, available now for £1.59.

Why not experiment and try making different sizes? Create a single massive flower as a statement piece or make tiny ones for Christmas tree decorations.

Hello!

Welcome to our first blog...

Here at Flingers, we want to help you create the best party, celebration or event that you possibly can. We will be regularly publishing blogs that hopefully will help you with everything, from what music to play to what costume theme to go for. We will even cover how to decorate your home or venue and serve up the best party nibbles.


We will sometimes review products and books and surprise you with a few step-by-step guides to make things for your special event. If there is something you particularly want us to cover, just find us on Facebook or Twitter and tell us, we are always happy to help. 

We are currently situated in Patchway, Bristol but in the new year, we will be launching our massive online party shop. Everything you need for a party will be available to buy online and delivered to your door, wherever you are in the UK. Perfect! 

Flingers Party Shop x