Saturday, June 21st, 2008...12:05 pm
#37: Cancel The Dinner Party
I didn’t start throwing dinner parties until I was nearly 40. Too much work, too difficult to coordinate all those dishes, plus who was going to take care of the kids while I shopped and cooked and cleaned and uncorked the wine to serve wine in my Holmegaard glasses and lit the candles and changed into a comfortable-yet-cleavage-baring dress and led the sparkling conversation?
And then, on our tenth wedding anniversary, I asked my husband what he’d change about me if he could, and he said he’d like it if I was able to give a nice dinner party. And so I learned. In fact, I got really good at it. Moving to the suburbs, living in a house with a real dining room, having more time on Saturday once our kids got older, we came to really enjoy dinner parties — giving as well as getting.
But now I think it’s time to stop. I’m tired. Plus, they all start to feel the same. Now that I’m acting younger, I’m going to start inviting my friends over to share a keg and a bag of potato chips — if they’re really lucky, a pot of chili — on Saturday nights.
I’ve never given a real dinner party – had friends over for a nice meal, but usually just 4 of them at the most. Usually we get together and everyone just brings something.
Dinner parties definitely still exist, but they’re not nearly as stuck up. We have a standing once per month vegetarian dinner potluck. Each month has a cuisine (Thai, Middle Eastern, Japanese). Todays “Dinner Party” is basically a potluck dinner for 8-12 instead of a big event with invitations and preparations.
I used to do that, but I’d be so exhausted by the time guests arrived that I couldn’t even enjoy my own party. These days I just make a big pot of soup the day before that people can serve themselves from the stove whenever they want. I just have that and a bunch of munchies that be made ahead of time. People eat what they want, when they want. Everybody has a much better time, especially me.
OMG!!!
Here I was thinking it was just me.
I thank you from the bottom of my heart for this wonderful and helpful advice.
[…] room since….well, since they lived with mom and dad. They don’t entertain by throwing formal dinner parties in dining rooms; when they have friends over, everyone sits around the living room or stands around […]