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Party Planning Online

By Elizabeth Wasserman

The holidays are always a hectic time of year. Knowing this, Kimberly Notarianni decided to take full advantage of the Internet to streamline the planning of her annual holiday cookie exchange. She signed on to the web site Evite to send her invitations and keep track of RSVPs. She even set it up to automatically generate thank you notes after the gathering is over.

"It makes everything so easy," says Notarianni, a mother of two from Fairfax, Va. "Every time someone responds, I get a notification in email. On the day before the party, the site will email a reminder to everyone. And when the party is over, I can upload pictures and send them with the thank you notes."

The Internet has made party planning a snap. Here's how you can get in on the action.

Pick a theme
When it comes to holiday get-togethers, the web offers festive suggestions for themes. "You could do 'fantasy and frost' with all snow and ice decorations," says Phyllis Cambria, who with partner Patty Sachs runs PartyPlansPlus and co-wrote The Complete Idiot's Guide to Throwing a Great Party. "You can also do a wooden soldier theme from Babes in Toyland," Cambria says. "Or you can do a '50s sock hop in a Jingle Bell Rock theme."

Real Simple magazine offers suggestions ranging from a cheese party that only takes an hour of prep to a sit-down dinner featuring beef Bourguignonne or a dessert buffet with Rugelach and Panettone bread pudding. Better Homes and Gardens suggests throwing a party called "Surf's Up Santa," with Hawaiian shirts and seafood, or you can take your lead from the classic movie It's a Wonderful Life and do vintage trimmings like roast turkey.

Pick the invites
Evite has an assortment of holiday invitation designs -- from a Santa Snow Angel to a Kwanzaa celebration to an invitation featuring a Dreidel -- that you can browse and select with a few clicks. Online greeting card sites, such as Blue Mountain and Hallmark, also have ready-made invitation templates that can be emailed to guests. But some people are less tech savvy, and prefer paper invitations to a soiree. In that case, you can decorate your own invitation with clip-art images from Microsoft Word and print them (of course, then you have to mail them and wait for RSVPs).

Pick the menu
The menu for your holiday gathering could follow your theme. If you chose Surf's Up Santa, you're more likely to be serving barbecued shrimp than Christmas goose. Martha Stewart's holiday planning site offers traditional sit-down dinner fare, from prime rib with Yorkshire pudding to baked country ham and oyster pie. iVillage's holiday party ideas include a buffet of finger foods -- from brie, mango and roasted poblano pepper quesadillas to endive leaves filed with blue cheese, spiced nuts and honey -- all served on trays lined with shiny, thick wrapping paper. Or Epicurious, a site by Bon Appetit and Gourmet magazines, offers holiday party menus for Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa.

Pick the décor
With the price of gas these days, who wants to drive from store to store looking for the right holiday party decorations? It's so easy to browse online. Party411 has two dozen holiday party themes for decorations, ranging from candy cane cutouts and Mylar balloons to a wall-length "scene setter" featuring nutcrackers, snowmen or a peaceful snow scene. iParty carries everything from gold and silver foil bells to Santa costumes to holiday-themed party packs of matching plates, napkins and cups. Another site, ShindigZ has an online catalog full of snowflake arches, a candy cane house, and personalized banners. When in doubt, just search the web for "party supplies" to get started.

Pick the music
Don't have the right holiday-themed CDs in your collection at home? You can customize the music at your fete by downloading from iTunes, where you can purchase Jingle Bell Rock by every artist from Brenda Lee and Dion to The Chipmunks. Or you can buy CDs from Amazon, such as A Charlie Brown Christmas featuring Vince Guaraldi's holiday arrangements, to Christmas with the Rat Pack with Frank (Sinatra), Dean (Martin) and Sammy (Davis Jr.).

When planning a holiday party online, use your computer to make your life at this hectic time of year a bit simpler. "There is so much information out there," says party-planner Cambria. "You start wondering how you ever planned a party without the Internet."