Tailgate Party Etiquette Essentials

Whether you are watching the game from your living room couch or hosting a soiree from the back of your pickup truck, the goal is all the same – FUN!

 

Celebrating your favorite team with a few friends and a winning party atmosphere that includes food, festivities and fun is the key to a successful game day experience.

 

Showcase Your Team Colors

Demonstrate your team spirit by adorning yourself in your favorite team’s colors. It can be as simple as wearing earrings with your team’s logo, wearing an assortment of colorful beads or covering your entire body with paint.  Just make it a point to keep it classy.  Don’t overexpose yourself, and wish you had made a better decision, once you take a look at your post party pictures that someone tagged you in on social media.

 

Provide Guests with Creature Comforts

Keep your guests cozy and warm by providing soft blankets and oversized scarfs on a windy and cold day. Surprise your friends with a basket full of options when it comes to keeping warm. Create little “survival kits” filled with hand warmers, gloves, soothing cough drops, socks, lip balm, and hot chocolate mix to give to each of your guests. Bring a few thermoses of hot water for some instant hot chocolate in a cup.

 

Offer a Variety of Foods

Food is one of the main features at any tailgate party. Serve finger foods: pigs in a blanket, burgers, deviled eggs decorated like a football, mugs of hot soup in insulated mugs, chili and even grilled cheese sandwiches. Fire up the grill and start melting the cheese and fresh bread.

 

 Think Inside of the Box

Get creative when it comes to how you choose your serving pieces. Use mason jars to hold a specialty drink or create your own bento style box by using small cardboard berry boxes to hold food. A large planter makes an excellent drink cooler. Fill it up with your favorite ice and drinks and let the ice melt hassle-free through the bottom of the planter.

 

Play Lawn Games Like an MVP

Life size Jenga, ring toss, Wahoo, and so many others are an exciting addition to the party. A must-have lawn game this season is cornhole! This game is competitive, friendly and your guests will have a blast competing against each other. To heighten the festivities even more and stir up some rivalry, have a trophy for the best cornhole player.

 

Keep Your Party Rolling

Everyone loves sweets! Don’t forget easy favorites such as cake pops on a stick or doughnuts to end your party with a winning score. Cake pops are easy to make and there is a doughnut shop around every corner. Let the kids decorate their doughnuts with frosting and sprinkles. Buy ready-made cookie dough and shape the dough into footballs. Serve them warm from the oven if you are hosting a tailgate party at home. It’s a nice way to end the festivities and send everyone off with a game day memory.

 

 

You may also like How to Host a Football Tailgate Party. For more of Diane’s etiquette tips read her posts on Inc., subscribe to her articles on HuffPost, “like” The Protocol School of Texas on Facebook, and follow her on Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter. Buy her new book, Modern Etiquette for a Better Life.