A Night at the Oscars

Hosting an Award-Winning Evening

For several years, our family has hosted A Night at The Oscars. Last year was a Covid skip, but we started this golden party back in 2014 for friends to pretend we are part of Hollywood’s elite.

To properly prepare for Oscar viewing, you need to see the contenders! Some years, Oscar night has started weeks early with a committed following of watching Best Picture contenders. It is hard to get everyone together for this, but I admit it forced me to watch films I wouldn’t have otherwise. It is also fun to have completely different opinions of movies when you all get to see them at the same time!

Some theaters now have Oscar viewings, where you can see all the pictures for one price. Look for theaters showing the “Shorts” and animated category movies you don’t always get to see.

Decorations

I unabashedly call my party low-budget. For decorations, anything movie-themed works. Anything gold works. I purchase something new each year, that way I don’t have all the expenses in one year. I have a gold and black movie strip that goes across the ceiling. I print and put up movie reels, film strips, and Oscar pictures on the wall. These can be saved from year to year if you really want to save on the budget! I have hanging gold foil stars, foil sparkly curtains which are inexpensive and really add filmy fun to the photos.

The best decoration I bought was a red carpet banner for the photos. Even though it’s plastic, the backdrop really makes the photos from the evening special. For my red carpet, I used a red plastic table cloth. It was cheap, but it definitely added to the floor décor. It had the added ability to protect my floor from snow when my guests arrived on one snowy March night. I may spring for a real red carpet this year.

All guest are encouraged to glam it up on the red carpet for posterity sake. Family photos on the red carpet create cherished memories for years to come.

Golden Tickets

I purchase chocolate bars and rewrap each one in gold foil and then put on my own customized “souvenir” label. When someone comes into the house, they are presented with their golden ticket and we take their picture on the red carpet. It has become a tradition.

Attire

We encourage people to either dress up in their finest sparkly outfits or dress as characters in the Oscar-contending movies. One year I was the crazy wife played by Jennifer Lawrence in American Hustle. Another year, I was “all of the designers.” I printed the designer names on paper, then pasted them all over my neutral black shirt and yoga pants. I wore Oscar de la Renta, Halston, Vera Wang, and Armani was on my arm. Another year, I found a glitzy gold and black dress perfect for a real Oscar affair. At the 2020 party, we had the “Roaring 20’s” theme and several guests came in their flapper outfits. I’ve had guests arrive in tuxedos, sparkly gowns and one came as a cake. I made sure the cake took the Best Dressed award. This year’s theme is “Let it Go” in honor of a little girl evacuee from Ukraine.

Activities

What do we do at the Oscar Party? If your kids are little you can really have fun with this. Not only can kids help you with your gold-themed ideas and party favors, but they can also help you with being creative at coming up with your own Oscar award categories. Each person in attendance gets an award for something silly and they get their own Oscar sucker or plastic Oscar award. (We recycle them each year so we have them next year)

We made up categories with strange words like “Most stupefying,” “Most supercalifragalisticexpialadocious” “Best in Class” “Best Dressed” “Most Talkative” “Most Likely To Be Famous” and other silly categories. We do tell the kids that this is all in fun, so don’t get offended if we give them an award opposite to their personalities!!

Sometimes I match up the receiver of the award with the category, but sometimes we make it completely random. I will write the names of guests on paper and put them in gold envelopes (these too can be reused each year) Then we ensure everyone gets an Oscar during the evening.

We let the kids' MC and do the award presentations-they seem to love to do this! If you have time, allow everyone to do an acceptance speech, it usually begins, “I’d like to thank the Academy…”

Guests will each be given a ballot for the “big” awards and the votes will be collected with our own announcement of the Best Picture winner during the evening.

I have a movie strip table cloth I use on the kitchen table and gold serving trays and plastic cups. I use little pieces of gold foil and/or gold stars on the table to decorate. I made a gold box out of a shoebox where people can put their own votes for Best Picture.

Food

What can I make that is gold? We do a lot of salads and appetizers and one main “meal” item. One year it was tacos, another year pizza. I do try to work with the nominees and one of my guests signed up to bring Licorice Pizza.

Desserts

Desserts are a fun way for guests to come up with movie-themed treats. Encourage them to put a movie-themed item together. I purchase an assortment of gold-wrapped candy. Hershey’s gold, Werther’s original, Ghirardelli gold, chocolate gold coins, and even handmade gold Oscar suckers. Movie-themed swag bags are also a great treat, you can put microwave popcorn and gold treats inside.

We usually start the party 90 minutes before the Oscars start, during the red carpet. We’ll have time to eat and socialize. Your “house” awards can be done during the commercial breaks.

Because the Oscars are always on a Sunday night, you will also want to keep clean up to a minimum. You also need to understand your guests may have to leave before Best Picture time. There will be work in the morning when we are no longer Somebody-in-Hollywood and return to the reality of being a regular crew.

I hope you enjoy my movie reviews. More to come!!