People often start to panic when they are asked or they have offered to entertain people at their house. They start trying to come up with entertaining ideas and planning all of the things that they will do once people come over. We will eat from this time to this time, watch home movies from dinner till dessert, then back around the table until we play "Guess the Christmas Carol" and at the end of the night the guests are dead tired and didn't really have as much fun as you had hoped. Plus you are exhausted from planning everything all out and running around the house all night.
Not the best way to plan a night if you ask me, and it sounds expensive. I mean a meal for that many people can really drain the wallet. The best way entertaining ideas come easy. Ask your guests each to bring a dessert or a side dish. You can also only serve dessert and ask them to eat dinner before arriving. Either way you won't use a week's pay to feed your friends for one night. Also ask each of them to bring a game or two that they enjoy playing. Sure it may lead to discussion and conflict when everyone wants to play their favorite game, but normally that isn't that huge of an issue. Next, allow the night to flow. After dinner if no one is ready to play a game, just sit and relax. Enjoy the conversation. Unless your guest all hate each other, which is unlikely that you would have invited them all over at once, you shouldn't have to distract them from each other.
Even once the game has begun allow it to pause or stop all together if everyone starts talking, especially if it is serious or thinking game. It seems that around the holidays, people would just rather converse with each other rather than be forced to do things they don't really want to. So let the night flow however it goes and let your guest pitch in and in the end you won't be going crazy and you won't have maxed out your credit card.
