Tailgates and Touchdowns Game Day Party Ideas

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It’s that time of year again, it’s football season!  If you’ve been a fan of Giggles Galore for a while you know how much we love football season.  During the fall you can find us cheering on our local school team on Friday nights, rooting for our college alma mater and tailgating at home games on the weekends.  Fall means football tailgates and touchdowns and today I’m sharing lots of game day party ideas that you can use to throw your own extraordinary football watch parties.

When my family moved to Texas years ago we learned very quickly that football isn’t just a game here, it’s a way of life.  And I was more than happy to embrace it!  One of my favorite things about football season is getting to tailgate with friends before the game.  There is something so fun about hanging out with friends, playing games and snacking on our favorite football fare. And, since I love a good party I love to deck out our tailgate space with festive decorations and everything our fellow fans will need to enjoy the pre-game party.

In addition to festive decorations and great food, you can always find an ice-cold bottle of Coca-Cola® at our tailgate. Share a Coke is back at Walmart and in addition to Share a Coke 20 oz Coke bottles featuring over 1,000 unique first names, you can now find bottles of Coca-Cola® and Coca-Cola® Zero Sugar with your favorite football team logos!

Gameday snacks like popcorn, pretzels, and wings pair perfectly with an ice-cold Coca-Cola®.  It’s easy to create a self serve popcorn and pretzel snack station for your next football watch party.  One of my favorite ways to serve pretzels is from my DIY pretzel bar station.  I used copper pipes, woodblocks, and s-hooks to make this fun and easy snack display.  It’s always a hit with guest and it’s perfect for tailgating.

When you are tailgaiting it’s important to make sure you have everything accessible and on hand for the party.  One of my favorite game day party ideas is to use wooden crates and fill them with plates, napkins, cups, and snacks.  Keeping it in the crate makes it easy to transport to the game as well as making it easily accessible for guest. 

Here is the south we love to personalize everything, especially for our football parties.  We had custom tailgate cups and napkins made for our tailgate parties and they pair perfectly with the new Share a Coke with my favorite team logo.  

Another way to make your tailgate stand out from the rest in the stadium lot is to add a little bit of extra pizzaz.  I like to hang a few banners, add balloons and include some fun chalkboard signs.  Everyone will want to come join the party when they see how much fun people are having at your festive tailgate.

Speaking of fun, this year I decided we needed to add a little bit of entertainment and friendly competition to our tailgate parties so I decided to make and personalize a set of cornhole boards.  Cornhole is a classic tailgate activity and it’s even more fun with personalized boards and football bean bags.

I used my Cricut to cut out a personalized “Tailgates and Touchdowns” vinyl saying to put on the cornhole boards.  Once I transferred the vinyl to the cornhole boards I knew we were going to need a set of football bean bags.  

To make the bean bags I used brown felt to cut out football shapes.  Place two pieces together and stitch around the outer edge of the football until you have a small opening at the top of the bag.

Next, fill the bag with corn, beans or plastic pellets.  Once the bag is full, stitch up the end of the football bean bag.  Use these football bean bags to play cornhole on your personalized tailgate cornhole boards and let the friendly competition ensue.  

I’m so excited about football season and win or lose we can’t wait to cheer on our favorite teams.  This season we are excited to Share a Coke with all our super fans and friends at our homegating and tailgating parties.  Thankfully, Walmart makes it easy to shop for, and stock up on everything we need to throw an extraordinary tailgate party!

Whether you are tailgating at the game or watching it at home on TV, be sure to grab a few bottles of Coca-Cola® and Coca-Cola® Zero Sugar with your favorite football team logos and celebrate with friends this football season.