15 Festive Christmas Charcuterie Board Ideas

Looking for Christmas charcuterie board ideas to spruce up your holiday table? Although the traditional charcuterie board features savory finger foods like sliced sausages, cheese, crackers, olives, etc., it’s also a pretty effective presentation method for whatever foods you choose—including Christmas-y treats, and even desserts! 

Before you start to work on the party menu, if you’re not planning to have it at your own home, make sure you’ve nailed down the location of your holiday party. Searching Peerspace is one of the best ways to find Christmas party venues near you, as it’s the largest online marketplace for hourly space rentals, with more than ten thousand listings based in cities across the US, the UK, Europe, Australia, Canada, and beyond. It’s worth finding a place you truly love, as the location of your party makes a huge difference in your guests’ experience (as does the food you serve).

To make your next Christmas gathering complete—and ensure your guests rave about how great the food was at your gathering—here are 15 festive and inspiring Christmas charcuterie board ideas!

1. Christmas tree charcuterie board

Our first Christmas charcuterie board idea centers around the iconic symbol of the Christmas tree, created with your favorite assortment of salami, olives, cubed cheese, cherry tomatoes, and the like. Don’t forget to cut a star out of cheese for the top of the tree!

2. Consider using a tree-shaped board

Instead of using a regular rectangular or circular wooden charcuterie board, purchase one in the shape of a tree to make preparing your “charcuter-TREE” that much simpler. You can find lots of beautiful handmade examples of these on Etsy, like this one from Umbrella Woodworking.

3. Or a gingerbread man-shaped board

Building your charcuterie spread using a wooden board in the shape of a gingerbread man is another easy and fun Christmas charcuterie board idea!

4. Gingerbread charcuterie board

Speaking of gingerbread men—you could even use your gingerbread man charcuterie board as the base of your gingerbread charcuterie board to really keep the theme going! It’s hard to imagine anything more Christmasy than this.

5. Grinch dessert board

We’ll keep the sweet charcuterie board thing going by suggesting this Grinch dessert board, which uses M&Ms, green grapes, sliced kiwis, and other green foods for his green head, strawberries, and white chocolate-covered pretzels for his red and white Santa hat, and other snacks arranged to look just like this iconic green party pooper!

Discover what’s like an Airbnb for Christmas parties here.

6. Don’t be afraid to follow a recipe/guide

If you’ve never put together a charcuterie board before, you might be a little intimidated at the prospect of figuring out what to put on it. After all, you want to successfully achieve the right balance of snacks, including sweet and savory choices that go well together. Here’s a visual guide as an example of what might be helpful.

7. Hummus and veggies charcuterie

Maybe you’ve consumed tons of Christmas treats and are looking for a way to bring some vegetables, fiber, and plant-based protein to your charcuterie. Don’t be afraid to make a charcuterie board that features hummus, veggies, fruit, and other nutritious foods.

8. Use skewers to make bite-size, portable snacks

If your charcuterie board is made up of lots of “segments” composed of various pieces of cheese, meat, olives, etc. on toothpicks/skewers, your guests will be able to walk around with their snacks and mingle, instead of standing by the food table the whole time they’re eating.

9. Mini charcuterie bowls

Speaking of portability, another option in that vein is to make individual portions of charcuterie in their own separate bowls, so guests can carry these around.

10. Make salami roses as decorative accents

This is actually easier than it looks, and it’s a much more decorative way to display slices of salami than simply setting them down flat in overlapping rows. You can even use a really big one as the centerpiece for your board!

Now that you’ve got the charcuterie board down, it’s time to explore our favorite Christmas dinner party ideas!

11. Or make cucumber roses

Perhaps you’re a vegetarian, or you’re simply not a fan of salami. Whatever your reason, it’s also easy to make roses out of cucumbers, in addition to cured meat.

12. Get creative with the arrangement

You don’t have to arrange everything in perfect circles or according to what you see online. Make your charcuterie board your own by presenting the components in creative ways, like this arrangement.

13. Charcuterie wreath

All it takes to turn a wheel of brie into the centerpiece of your wreath is to cut out the center with a tree-shaped cookie cutter (or whatever shape you’d prefer). From here, surround the cheese with rosemary branches and tasty snacks, as shown in this Instagram reel.

14. Christmas cheese trees appetizer

With nothing more than wedges of brie, assorted herbs and spices (like red pepper flakes and fresh rosemary), and pretzel sticks, you can make this adorable appetizer to spice up the look of your charcuterie board.

15. Pineapple Christmas tree

This would work with pretty much any of the other Christmas charcuterie board ideas on this list: creating a Christmas tree using the spiky top of a pineapple, sliced off from the rest of the fruit, and flipped upside down! Surrounded by sliced fruit and other snacks, it’ll look incredibly festive while requiring minimal effort to make.

Find unique Christmas party venues on Peerspace