There’s a scene in Dickens’s A Christmas Carol that every company should reread in December. On Christmas Eve, old Fezziwig has the shutters put up, clears the warehouse floor, sends for a fiddler and invites everyone: his wife and daughters, the apprentices, the cook, the local baker and milkman. They dance, they eat, they laugh. Years later, watching that party again, Scrooge realises that his old employer had the power to make work feel light or heavy, and that he used it in small ways. It didn’t take much money. It took an evening where people really came together.

Nearly two centuries on, the corporate Christmas party raises the same question. Whether it’s held in a villa on Lake Como or in an industrial space in central Milan, what guests remember is rarely the order of the courses. It’s the chance conversation with someone from another department, the toast everyone was part of, the sense that someone had thought about them.

An evening that lets people mingle

UK event organisers, in a feature in Hospitality & Events North, describe a steady shift away from formal three-course dinners towards relaxed, interactive set-ups where guests can move around and choose for themselves. The Amex GBT 2026 Global Meetings & Events Forecast, as reported by eventbook, points the same way: 42% of the professionals surveyed say attendees want more interactive formats than five years ago, and 40% see a growing appetite for socialising and networking. The study looks at events in general, not just Christmas parties, but the trend is hard to miss.

So if you’re planning the party, there’s a question worth asking before you even look at the menu: who should get to know each other better that night? A standing aperitivo that stretches on, a buffet instead of a seating plan, separate areas to wander between, glass in hand: choices like these change the whole rhythm of the evening.

Food as live theatre

Interactive food stations also feature among what companies are asking for, according to the same article. It’s an instinct as old as cooking: put people in front of a fire or a kitchen counter and they stop, watch and start asking questions. A live cooking show, a station where dishes are finished in front of guests, a pizza truck parked in the villa garden: each one turns food into a place where people meet. In winter, in our experience, nothing draws a crowd quite like a fresh pasta station, with dough rolled out on the spot, ravioli sealed by hand, steam rising from the pots, and always someone who asks to have a go.

To take it a step further, the party itself can become time spent cooking together: a pizza or cocktail masterclass turns colleagues into a small kitchen brigade. We’ve written about this in our Story on the cooking masterclass, a truly Italian experience.

A Christmas menu everyone can enjoy

Christmas food is bound up with family memories, but a company party brings together many families, habits and sensitivities. The same experts note that guests now expect events to cater for a range of dietary needs, with fresh, local, more plant-forward menus that leave people energised rather than weighed down.

Planning from the start for vegetarian, vegan and coeliac guests means creating dishes that belong on everyone’s plate, not adding alternatives at the bottom of the menu. And around Lake Como, winter has plenty to offer: lake fish, chestnuts, pumpkin, cheeses from the surrounding valleys, mountain flavours that have always found their way down to the shore. A Christmas menu can feel familiar and still be lighter, without losing any of the celebration.

Raise a glass, with or without alcohol

The bar has always been where people come together, as we wrote in our Story on the tradition and timeless charm of the Italian bar, and at a Christmas party it is often the heart of the evening. These days, though, that doesn’t have to mean alcohol: British organisers report that guests expect sophisticated alcohol-free cocktails, drinks that feel like a celebration rather than a compromise.

A cocktail list created for the evening, with signature drinks and alcohol-free options made with the same care, means everyone can raise a glass without having to explain why. And to make the bar unmistakably yours, we style it in your brand colours, right down to ice cubes stamped with your logo.

Lunch, sunset or late into the night

Not every party needs to go on into the small hours. The same experts see growing interest in daytime Christmas parties, driven by work-life balance, and some companies are devoting the day to reflection or team building before the evening celebration. A long lunch in a villa with the lake in its winter light, an early aperitivo that turns into dinner, a classic evening party: each format suits a different crowd.

Three Spuma Christmas parties

In Milan, for A.C. Milan’s Christmas party at Talent Garden Calabiana, we looked after food and service for 500 guests, with a team of more than 80 waiters, chefs and bartenders. The menu was designed as a journey of flavours paying tribute to the Club’s identity and to Milanese culture.

On the lake, at Serre Ratti in Casnate con Bernate, the Christmas party for Tessabit, the Como luxury boutique, brought together 150 guests from 8 pm to 1 am. Our food & beverage service was shaped around the client’s brief, from a refined aperitivo through dinner to signature cocktails at the end of the night.

In Cernobbio, we catered the Engel & Völkers Christmas party for 160 guests, from 6 to 10 pm: proof that a party can be lively and still finish early.

December fills up fast

December only has so many Fridays and free evenings, for companies and for venues across the lake and the city alike. So it’s no surprise that booking earlier is another trend the same article picks up. Settling the date and format in good time leaves room for what matters: tasting, changing your mind, adding that extra detail.

In the end, Fezziwig didn’t need anything grand. He understood that a party is a way of saying thank you, and that how you set the table says a great deal about how you see the people sitting around it. That’s where we begin every time a Christmas party starts to take shape, whether on the lake or in Milan. If you’d like to find out more about how we work, take a look at our services page.