What is your entertaining style?

[abjcooking]

I've foud that like pdswife1 said that it is good to try and spread out the food in different places. This forces people to move around and it will keep many different conversations constantly going. This way people won't gather into one place and stay on one conversation.

 

[ronjohn55]

What is your entertaining style?

Heh Heh..

Keggers! What else!

All our stuff is usually pretty informal. We'll usually provide some sort of main dish, and then request the guests bring some other side/beverage/desert, etc..

 

[norgeskog]

This my style......beer,bbq and spam musubi on the beach.

Wasabi, glad you are here, I want to make your chicken recipe tonight and the name soybaeuiusfkhsje, obviously I forgot the name, what was that ingredient? a type of soy sauct???? HHHHEEEELLLLLPPPPP thanks

This guy is really hot on your beach wasabi, that is why he is running away....

 

[wasabi]

And he's WAY overdressed. Check your pm, norg.

 

[norgeskog]

And he's WAY overdressed. Check your pm, norg.

Ya I know, and I checked and got the info on pm, thanks, and I posted that your chicken was what I was having for dinner tonight. Thanks

 

[Claire]

Don't know if you're still watching this, but have a few tips.

If you are confident about the food, and you seem to be, you are half-way there.

Believe it or not, crowding people is much better than letting them spread out. I've thrown parties for 40 in 800 and 1600 sq ft town houses (imagine this, now, really, we're talking really, really tiny rooms with 40 people in them) and parties for 15 or 20 in 2400 sq ft house with pool and hot tub and the works. The former were more successfull than the latter.

A big social thing that so many miss in this day & age, especially if you're mixing groups (i.e., neighbors who won't know your coworkers who won't know your wife's coworkers who won't know your relatives) is ... introductions. Sounds stupid, and yes, we all forget the name as soon as we are introduced. But it doesn't matter. If you're talking to X, an Y walks up, introduce them. mention something about one or the other or both, especially if you can think of something that will interest one or the other. One day my father, and my husband's coworker-turned-best-friend's-brother wound up walking on the beach together talking for an hour. I was astonished. Dad is very... un-talkative.

The point is that introductions can strangely take people who have no connection and nothing in common and you have a third entity entirely.

I had a reputation as a party thrower once upon a time, and mostly because I never thought twice about who I threw together. It was mostly naivite at the time. Everyone would ask me how I thought that my auto mechanic Guamanian next door neighbor would be comfortable with the colonel, with the Navy cook, with the German architect. It just didn't occur to me that they wouldn't. And it always did.

 

[Catseye]

One thing ... at least in the initial ice-breaking stage, have fewer chairs than people. You want at least some of your guests to be on their feet and walking around.

Also, I can't remember if someone else said this, but try to arrange things so you yourself will be at least somewhat rested before the party. That way you can relax and enjoy your own party.

Other than that, I'd say you have the right idea, along with the great advice from the other posters. It sounds like it will be a success!

 

[Claire]

Definitely agree w/catseye. I have as many foods as I can done before hand (am right now making Cincinatti chili for my XMas party next Saturday because it is actually BETTER after being frozen and thawed!). I use lots of things like plates of marinated vegetables (artichoke hearts, mushrooms, pickled vegs of all sorts, etc). In the summer I potluck, at XMas I say 'bring an apetizer if you want'. NOTHING stresses out the party like the hosts NOT being with the guests, or being so damned busy that the aforementioned introductions don't get made. If you're like me and invite diverse groups, that's a guarantee to get them to split off into cliques and talking among themselves.

I agree with the chairs as well. Just make sure that your guests who need a chair have one (I have a blind friend who sort of needs to be still in unfamiliar territory, and a couple of older freinds who cannot stand). Mostly people will be polite and it will not be a problem, but sometimes they'll be having fun and forget. "do you mind if xxx sits here" works.

A neighbor (who is inclined to be nervous) comments often on my parties being SO RELAXED. Why? How do I do it? The truth is that I enjoy my own parties.

 

[mudbug]

Claire, please invite me to your next party. They sound wonderful.

 

[Claire]

Gee, you missed the boat! Hawaii is one of those places I threw parties in minimal space! One time I was in Virginia, and ran into a freind who just came in from Korea. At the time we were living in Florida, the friend was living in Virginia, and in Korea he'd run into a third acquaintance we'd known in Hawaii. Bizzare. But somehow these two men got to talking and found out they had us in common, and great parties WE had thrown in both Hawaii and Fort Monroe, Virginia. It was a proud moment in time. Here in Galena there are so many upper crust Chicagoans who have thrown de-luxe parties that it is a stress thing. Who they HAVE to invite, what they HAVE to have. I just invite who I like, and relax and enjoy. Still have many friends in Hawaii, and any time you show up at my doorstep for a party, you're welcome here.

 

[Lifter]

Different thread, I know, but could be applied to this one, of Handing them the little "fictional or factual" names on the back of their jackets, to encourage meeting and greeting all until you get the damn thing off, at least!

Colonel, Corporal, Sgt Major or Captain, we all put our pants on one leg at a time, and whatever the job tasking, enjoy good mixing entertainment!

Note "Heartbreak Ridge" (Eastwood movie) where the full Colonel says to the Tech Sgt "well, we sure chewed some of the same dirt"...thee's a good deal of "commonality" in being invited to the same party!

Likewise, most of your "guests" will have a "life outside of career", interests aside from their "jobs"...in the case of military types, there's literally too many things you cannot "talk about", especially as your rank "grows", and a "good party" is the relief you are seeking...

I'd sooner have a "tete a tete" with Audeo on the "chili debate" and recipes, than work through the gut grinder on how I'd take a 120 guys and gals through Bosnia, and how to deal with genocide graves, "Civil Unrest", "factional interests"...or the tragedy of Rawhanda and what LGen Romeo D'Allaire went through there, with the UN screwing him, his "peacekeepers" getting butchered, and nobody taking much notice...

So, DEEPLY SORRY, but when the Cdn Army phones and asks if I'd consider "coming back in" and taking a company over to the Balkans or Afghanistan...my reply remains "No thanks"...my medals might be few, but the guys with the long line of them in Canada...well I've seen what problems they had, both then and in later life...

Anyways! Don't need to go back down the toilet bowl of terrors, do I?

The Brass you are entertaining are just as interested in a "good time" as you are, and are fantastic leaders besides...give them a cue on which way to go, and it'll be "get off the table, Mabel, the five bucks is for the beer", in no time...

Lifter