No Excuses: Throw A Party!

Authored by Jeffrey A. Tucker via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

So many people these days are reluctant ever to throw a house party. The house is too messy. Cannot cook. It costs too much money. Not enough friends. No real dining table. I’m too busy. No one will show up anyway. And so on.

Millions this holiday season will sit at home wishing they had some party to attend. They will think their lives lack meaning and adventure, as they scroll through their social feeds that reveal people they know living their best lives. This is a perfect prescription for depression and substance abuse.

There is something you can do about it. Throw a party yourself. Invite everyone you know. Pack them all in. Even if they sit on the floor. It really doesn’t matter. What matters is the human connection you have enabled and the lives you will make better, including your own.

It just takes a bit of bravery.

To be sure, it is more expensive to entertain now than it ever has been. That said, there are cheaper options out there, including making all the food yourself. This is where people get confused and attempt too much. The best way is the familiar, even if it is cheese, crackers, and store-bought pizzas or burgers. In this case, it really is the effort that counts.

Another major preventive here is the fear of being judged: the decor, the food, the not-entirely-clean house, and so on. This is entirely understandable. Opening up your home is an act of vulnerability. You are inviting people into your private space at a time when we are all concerned about our privacy. We also live in a culture of distrust of everything and everyone. That encourages a tendency toward not letting anyone into our lives.

But there is another side to this. It is precisely because inviting people in is so rare that it is so enormously valued. Just the invitation alone is enough to send a signal: you are valued, trusted, and part of what I consider my community of friendship. That’s a beautiful thing. What happens after that concerning food and drink is really not nearly as important as it seems.

That said, there are ways to gussy this up. If you have 4–8 people over, the sitdown dinner is the highest and best option, daring to attempt simply because most people never have. Under the ideal conditions, you have your best china, crystal, and silverware. You have the candles, flowers, and cotton/linen napkins, with a tablecloth on a gorgeous table.

If you do not have all that—nothing wrong with the aspiration—there are other methods.

Then there is the ever-useful excuse: I have no time. It’s nearly always incorrect. We are surrounded by technologies designed to save us time and yet we claim to have less time than ever. The claim to have no time is what it was when we were 10—an excuse not to do what we should do.

Here’s a quick story. I was once friends with a new immigrant from Russia who came over before the Soviet Union fell. Arriving in America, he felt he had landed in Schlaraffenland. He would buy everything not nailed down and stuff it in his apartment. He also had a tendency to make friends with everyone, and thrill to invite them to dinner and drinks. All he had was a few card tables that he would link together, and folding chairs for the guests.

His meal consisted of a huge pot of chicken with every random vegetable and rice, which he would always announce with a fancy Russian name, even when it was not true. He would spread a big cotton sheet over the tables as a tablecloth and use big bowls he found at a yard sale and serve up the food, alongside tall glasses of vodka which everyone would drink. There was also cheese and sausages.

Who was invited? He was something of a celebrity given the times, so there were ambassadors, senators, friends like me, and also some random people he met here and there, including someone I think was homeless. Perhaps there were 12 to 14 people in total. The evening was always just a wild blast, filled with hilarity and adventure.

From these events at his house, I took away the central point. It’s the hospitality that matters more than anything. It’s the human connection, not even the quality of the meal. Another feature that made his evening salons and dinners work was his utter confidence and joy. If the host is happy, everyone else is happy too. If the host is squeamish and embarrassed about the food and place setting, guests feel that too.

If you have more than 8 to 12, and perhaps you should, there are options. You can invite 50 people for a come-and-go from 6–8pm. Guaranteed that some people will stay to 10pm or later, and that’s great. In this case, there might be a time when people are standing shoulder-to-shoulder or crowded in the kitchen, making their own drinks and so on. But this seeming chaos is also enormous fun, even more fun.

Here comes an issue that is absolutely essential to any such evening, whether it is a dinner party or a come-and-go cocktail party with dips and chips. As the host, you absolutely must quiet everyone down at some point and make a toast. Some people are absolutely terrified of such a thing. I don’t know what to say but you have to get over your fears.

Just clink your glasses and start talking. You will be happy to know that the number one problem with all toasts is that they are too long. You can reduce it to a few sentences. And here’s a tip that always helps me. Try not to offer a toast to a person present, who is then not entitled by the rules of etiquette to join in, but rather to something bigger, some big idea.

It could be to community, faith, the holidays, courage, compassion, the power of love, the season, family, friendship, anything. Before you begin the toast, come up with the one chosen word. That gives you a stopping point.

Start with a clinked glass. Say a few words about the moment and the times. It can be commonplace or profound, silly or serious, or it can be a verse or sentence from a book. Then it ends with a toast to fill in the blank. That’s the whole thing. Very likely, someone will be inspired by your gesture and pick it up. Ideally, everyone will join in.

I can promise you that this will be the main memory of the evening. That’s good and that’s the point. Every such gathering needs some central moment. Otherwise, people have a sense of come and gone and not much happened. That is especially true with a cocktail party. You never want this to happen. There has to be a theme or a point and it is up to you to provide it.

That’s the entire thing, the whole of your responsibility: invite, feed, offer drinks, and make a toast. Your party is done.

Another crucial tip is in order. Do not plan to serve anything that requires you to rush around, spend lots of time in the kitchen, or otherwise neglect your guests. You must always look and act like this is all effortless. That puts your guests at ease. If you are rushing around, cursing at the food, making a racket in the kitchen, or otherwise stressed about anything, your guests will feel every bit of it. You have to be as relaxed and joyful as they are, and that requires some planning.

Ease of preparation is as crucial as anything else for this very reason. A good host must look calm and fully in control of the situation, oozing confidence and conviviality at all times.

What about music? I choose classical or interwar jazz or something vaguely unfamiliar just to give a sense that the guests are somewhere special. Another option: blessed peace with no music at all. That might even be the best choice, and if the talking becomes loud enough, it does not matter in any case.

When the guests offer to help clean up, always say a polite no. That is not why they are there.

Friends, can we make an effort here? We all desperately need community back. In our homes: that’s the best place for it to form. It is the ultimate act of kindness. Yes, it does open you up to criticism but that’s the whole point: to push out of your comfort zone in order to be kind to others. And perhaps your efforts here will become a tradition and inspire others.

This is the way we rebuild the culture: with one household party at a time.