Holiday Party Update

I’ll admit it – this isn’t a late-night post.  I missed yesterday.  Sometimes the real people in your life simply have to take first place in your plans.

I wanted to give you an update on my personal holiday party procrastination – I have now ordered my invitations through a website called Tiny Prints (www.tinyprints.com).  I’ll let you know how my experience with them turns out.  I really liked their selection – they had some very nice eclectic designs.

My theme has also been chosen – it will be a candycane-tini wonderland!

Stop Procrastinating and Get to the Good Stuff!

I made a promise to give tips on combating pre-party planning procrastination, so here goes.  I should be planning my annual Christmas party right now.  I should be ordering my printed invitations.  I should already know what I’m going to serve.  I should know how many people I’m inviting.  I should know what this year’s theme is.  I don’t.

 

I’m not sure if my latenik-i-ness stems from experience, or if it’s just because I’m busier than I used to be.  But it must be overcome at all costs.  The best party is a well planned one.

 

The urge to procrastinate planning your party may be because you feel like it will be to big a project.   To that I must say, simplify!  Are you thinking that you must serve a homemade hand-carved prime rib, or it just won’t be Christmas?  How about ordering that roast pre-cooked from a local gourmet shop like Bristol Farms (or whatever is in your area)?

 

Do you feel that you are simply too busy to plan it out?  You may be surprised that it probably won’t take as long as you think it will.  Sit down one evening after everyone else is in bed, and grab a cocktail, your most trusted cookbooks, some sticky notes and a notepad. 

 

First, take a sip and decide on a theme.  Don’t make it too complex:  Italian, retro, whatever.  Just something that can unify your choices.  If you have several cookbooks in a particular style, sit down with those, instead of the one Indian book you have.  Having a lot of choices will be helpful – you won’t feel stuck with anything, and will have a bit more freedom.

 

Second, take a swig, and decide whether you want to serve all appetizers and tapas, or whether you want to serve the components of a proper meal (such as salad, veg, a starch, a meat or vegetarian entrée, and a dessert.  (I never do a sit down meal for a large party.  It just doesn’t work for me.)  I like a mix – meal components, tapas style.  Everything bite size.

 

Next, start flipping through your books and tagging anything that looks good.  Don’t filer it.

 

Now, look again at the tagged items.   

 

• Remove anything that takes more than a day to prepare. 
• Remove anything that doesn’t have at least one make ahead component. 
• If you have marked items that use many of the same ingredients (3 kinds of cheese puffs, for example), choose one, and remove the rest.
• Remove anything that requires a knife to eat, if you are not having a seated meal, and people will be eating and roaming, cocktail style.

 

You should now have a variety of items that should nicely make up your meal.  I like to make sometimes 10 to 12 items.  I don’t recommend this, unless you thrive on driving yourself nuts.

 

Sending invitations is the one thing you really shouldn’t procrastinate on.  They must be sent at least 3 weeks in advance.  Make inviting everyone easy on yourself.  If you have everyone’s mail address, use a service like Evite.  If you mainly have mailing addresses, don’t make extra work for yourself by gathering everyone’s email address.  Order inexpensive pre-printed invitations online, and mail them out.  Some services will even do the mailings for you for a fee, if you provide a mailing list.  For my parties, I order pre-printed invitations, and have my guest list saved in Microsoft Word in label format.  It’s the best of both worlds.  (I prefer snail mail invitations to Evites for my own parties.  I think it’s great to receive party invitations by mail; it makes it a little more special, in my opinion.)

 

I think that’s it for now.  I’m off to order my Christmas party invitations…

Procrastination

I’m currently suffering from a severe bout of procrastination planning this year’s holiday party.  I’ll tell you about it, and how to try to overcome it, tomorrow.