Holiday parties make return for 2022 season

Folks in McHenry County are ready to party.

For the first time since COVID-19 shut down Christmas and holiday parties in 2020 and again in 2021, venue managers and event planners are seeing businesses and organizations decide it is time again to celebrate the season and their staffs.

“Some are going all out” for their parties this year, said Bernice Smith. She and her husband, Jim Smith, own 31 North Banquets and Catering in McHenry. This year, she said they saw a 50% increase in food orders and catering reservations over the 2021 Christmas season.

Some customers are asking for full service catering, and some are just getting trays delivered to “conserve their funds,” Jim Smith said. “We are flexible to accommodate what they are trying to achieve.”

For the Crystal Lake Holiday Inn, not only are more businesses hosting parties, they are seeing more of them pushed into January, Director of Sales and Marketing Eric Yarolimek said.

Brad Hisel, general manager of Bull Valley Golf Club in Woodstock, agreed. He has 15 Christmas parties scheduled, with several deciding to host their event in January to avoid the December rush.

Yarolimek has been in the hotel event business for a long time. He remembers the holiday party heyday of the early 2000s, before the Great Recession caused many businesses to dial back on or forgo a winter event.

“After the downturn, Christmas parties became optional” for companies as employees wanted bonuses in lieu of a party and smaller events went away, Yarolimek said.

“There was less of a focus on drinking and evening functions” and more luncheon events with gifts and employee recognitions. Those lunch events then led to a half-day off for the party attendees, he said.

Then, the past two holiday seasons competed with COVID-19 and shutdowns, Yarolimek said.

For the 2021 Christmas season, some groups did book parties, said Hisel from Bull Valley. But as the omicron variant began to spread, some of those events were canceled. “People who were going to be attendees were infected” by COVID-19, he said.

Still, since the companies wanted a party, the events were rescheduled, with some pushed back as late as February 2022, he said.

This year, Hisel said companies approached the golf club by mid-summer, looking to reserve a date in either December or January. Even then, he added, whether the event would even happen was a little iffy, as no one knew whether COVID-19 numbers would come racing back to winter 2021 levels or if a new variant would make the rounds.

Hisel said the layout of their building, as well as air handling improvements and ultraviolet lighting in every room, has helped to prevent infections there.

Parties and events are coming back in general, Yarolimek said. The Holiday Inn has 15 parties set for this season, with more people looking for a nighttime event with spouses invited as well.

“They are back to being a fancy party, dressed up. The daytime ones focused on employees and not spouses and tended to be a little bit smaller,” Yarolimek said.

“It is back to normal with drinks, appetizers, a nice meal and awards and door prizes, that kind of thing,” he said. “They are working to make this a fun event again a ‘we want to’ instead of a ‘we have to.’”

On Friday, he and his staff were setting up for a Christmas party that would include a dance floor, poinsettia centerpieces and a DJ. Earlier this season, another corporate party celebrated around a ‘90s theme, with CDs on the tables and awards for those who dressed to match the theme.

Both Yarolimek and Hisel said that while some businesses planned their events earlier this year, they also booked a few last-minute parties.

One of his clients called after Thanksgiving to see if there still was space available and they were able to accommodate them, Yarolimek said.

Even the Smiths at 31 North said they still would take orders for Christmas parties if companies were considering hosting a last-minute event.

“It depends on the time frame, the time of day and so forth,” Bernice Smith said. “There are no days that are completely closed off. If we have a large, 900-person catering event during the day, we would still be available for a night event. Since we offer off-site catering, that gives us more flexibility,” Bernice said.

In general, the hospitality industry does seem to be returning to normal, pre-COVID-19 levels for events, Yarolimek said. He has had more companies call him, looking for meeting space for anywhere from four to 40 people for a day or a week.

“It was trending that way prior to COVID, too. But COVID really did it in. To make long-term plans was fruitless because something would change” and the people coming in for that meeting didn’t, he said.

“It was a challenge. We’d have it on our books and it looked good, so we would build our month around that before getting the call that they wouldn’t be able to do it,” Yarolimek said.