By Josh Bennett

Managing Editor

Super Bowl XLIX is coming up on Sunday and you can be one of those people who catch the game in your favorite bar or restaurant or rely on one of your friends to throw a party. Instead, why don’t you be the one to throw the party, and when it is successful you can boost your cred and ego all the same! Here are some pointers on how to make your party not suck.

1. Food

It is a good idea to tell people to bring some snacks for the game, but they are only going to bring a bag of chips, a 12-pack, or the dreaded veggie tray. Make sure you aren’t afraid to spend a little bit of coin on the food to make sure everyone is happy with the selection. Don’t be that person who orders 20 pizzas and calls it a day. Pizza is good, but variety is better. Fire up the grill and serve some burgers and dogs, and even some BBQ, to everyone, have a couple pizzas and orders of wings on the counter, buy a few basic snacks just in case someone brings a can of mixed nuts instead of the bag of Doritos like you suggested. Also know your audience and have a couple vegetarian options available if necessary. Hummus and homemade guacamole are always big winners. Lastly, make sure there’s a mix of beer and soda and water. Not everyone wants to drink, but they don’t need to be breaking out the hard stuff either (unless their team lost the Super Bowl on a last second field goal, then they can just cry in their shot glass at the bar).

2. Seating and Decoration

Standing and eating sucks. Standing and watching TV, especially for nearly 4 hours, sucks too. If you invite 20 people to your house to watch the game, don’t have just one couch and a couple chairs available. Make sure everyone has a place to sit. Wheel out the computer chairs, find that stool no one uses, dust off the patio furniture and haul it in the living room, or if you don’t have any of that, just rent some chairs. Decoration is unnecessary. You don’t need to dress one half of your house in Patriots colors and the other half in Seahawks colors. Only decorate in team colors if your team is in the game, and be proud, but don’t dress your house in 49ers stuff, just because you’re still salty Seattle won again. Take down and put away any fragile, valuable, or rare knick-knacks in the room for the day and you’re ready to go. Shut every door in your house, outside of the bathroom, as people don’t need to be in there. There’s nothing like getting ready for bed, only to find a huge puddle of vomit in your bed, and your Xbox missing.

3. TV

So you have all the food in your kitchen, and you have stadium seating for 100 set up in the living room. Everyone has their plate of snacks and their drink and their ready to go…as they squint their eyes and lean in towards the 20-inch TV from the 90’s playing the game. Don’t do that to yourself. While you have all the amenities, people are there to watch the Super Bowl (or the commercials and Katy Perry). If you don’t have a giant HDTV, rent one from somewhere, or borrow one from a friend, or drag the one you play video games on out of your room for the day. Make the TV the main attraction, because it is the main attraction.

4. Cleanup

The worst part of any party is the cleanup. Expect going into this party that you will be the only one cleaning up. That one guy who said he would help you clean since he forgot to bring the Coke, yeah he’s “going to the bathroom” right when the game ends…and will slip out the window, never to be seen again. If you situated the party in the living room and kitchen, clean up should not be too hard, just picking up cups and plates and scraping ketchup off the ceiling. If you have carpet, then that sucks for you because you will have to clean up the stale beer and salsa out of it the next day with a Rug Doctor. It will take a couple hours post-party to straighten everything back up, so just be prepared for that. For extra help, install a trap door in the bathroom, so that everyone that uses it falls in the trap door, being forced to help you clean after the game. Don’t forget to put some food and a TV in the trap door room, because not doing so would just be evil.

With these tips, you will become the Super Bowl Party King or Queen and you will have to do this every year until you move out of town! Enjoy the game and however you decide to watch it!