Pick the holiday party date before December fills up
By the time someone asks, every calendar in December is half full. Propose four or five dates now, share one link, and let the team, the club or the family vote for the one they can actually make.
How to pick the date in four steps
Send it in early November
The first three weeks of December are when everyone else's party is too. Ask before calendars fill up and before the venues you want are booked. Groups that wait until December tend to end up with a Thursday in January.
Offer four or five dates, lunch and evening
Spread them across different weeks and different days. A lunch option rescues the people with childcare in the evenings, and a weekday evening helps the ones who travel at weekends.
Let everyone answer Yes, Maybe or No
Maybe matters most in December: it is how people say 'if the school concert moves'. Guests answer from their phone without an account, and can change their answers when their plans do.
Lock the date and book the same day
Once the winner is clear, lock it so everyone can add it to their calendar in one tap, then book the table. A date that is agreed but not booked is the one that slips.
What goes wrong with holiday party dates
- Asking 'when suits everyone?' in a group chat, which collects opinions about December instead of answers about dates.
- Offering only Fridays. They go first, and every other team in town is offering them too.
- Forgetting the people who leave early for the holidays, whose last day in the office may be the 18th.
- Choosing the date the organiser likes best rather than the one most people can make, then wondering who did not come.
- Leaving the poll open for two weeks. Give it four or five days, and call the venue the next morning.
Five dates, one link
Propose the candidate dates, share the link wherever the group already talks, and have the answer by the end of the week.
The office holiday party
For a team or a company the real question is not which evening is free, but which evening most people can make, including the ones who never reply. A poll shows that at a glance: every option with its Yes, Maybe and No, and who has not answered yet, so you can nudge two people instead of everyone.
Put the time in every option, not just the date. 'Friday 11 December, lunch, 12:00 to 15:00' gets answered for the real commitment, while 'the 11th' collects yes votes from people who assumed it was lunch and cannot do the evening.
Family Christmas and the days around it
Families have the harder version: two sets of in-laws, someone working shifts, someone flying in. Put the real candidates in one poll, Christmas Eve, Boxing Day and the weekend before New Year included, and let everyone mark the days they can do, instead of settling it call by call.
Relatives abroad see every option in their own time zone, which matters most for the call on Christmas morning that has to suit three countries at once.
Friendsgiving, New Year's Eve and the rest of the season
The same poll works for a Friendsgiving in November, a New Year's Eve plan, a club's end-of-year dinner or the evening the Secret Santa presents are opened: anything where the date is the first decision and nobody wants to be the one who picked it.
Who uses a holiday party poll
Office teams
The holiday party, the end-of-year lunch or the team dinner, without twelve replies to one email.
Families
Who hosts which day, and which day the cousins from abroad can make it.
Friends
Friendsgiving, a holiday dinner or New Year's Eve, settled before everyone has other plans.
Clubs and volunteers
The end-of-season dinner for a choir, a team or a committee, where half the members are hard to reach.
Holiday party poll questions
When should I send the holiday party poll?
Early to mid November. December evenings fill quickly, venues book up, and a poll sent in December usually ends with a date in January.
How many dates should I offer?
Four or five, spread over two or three weeks and at least two different days of the week. Fewer leaves no room for clashes; more turns answering into a chore.
Do the people I invite need an account or an app?
No. They open the link in any browser, tap Yes, Maybe or No for each date, and can change their answers later. Only the organiser signs in.
Can one poll offer both a lunch and an evening?
Yes. Each option is a date and a time, so you can mix lunches, evenings and weekend afternoons in one poll and let the group show which kind it prefers.
Is it free?
Yes. Decider is free and shows no ads, to you or to anyone you invite.
Other groups people schedule with Decider
- Book club schedulingFind a book club meeting date that works for the whole group without a long group chat.
- Sports team schedulingSet practice and match times your squad can commit to, and see who is actually available before you book the pitch.
- Study group schedulingFind a study session time around everyone's lectures, shifts and commutes with one shared link.
- Board meeting schedulingGet quorum on a board meeting date without chasing directors one by one over email.
Settle the date before December settles it for you.
Propose the dates, share one link, and lock the one most people can make. Free, no ads, no sign-up for guests.