After over a year of renovating and decorating, it was time to have the family over to celebrate. Around Thanksmas (combination of Thanksgiving and Christmas), we decided to plan a holiday party/housewarming when all of the family was in town for the holidays. I like to be extra sometimes so I decided to call it a soiree. 

With my family being scattered from coast to coast, the only time that we are all (mostly) in the same place is Christmas Eve at my paternal grandmother’s house with the exception of the occasional surprise 80th birthday party. We held our party the day before Christmas Eve to work with everybody’s schedule. 

Organization is key to a (mostly) stress free event. If it wasn’t for my sister and husband’s help, I wouldn’t have survived the party but most of my stress was self induced and it all worked out well.

Here is my P.L.A.N. for housewarming party planning. 

P—Pintrest 

Everything starts on Pintrest. I don’t believe in reinventing the wheel so start here and narrow down your menu options. I had too many options. Concentrate on a few items that you make a lot of to eliminate the stress of having too many things going at once.

• Food – finger food avoids spills on the rug, mix of temps (cold + hot)
• Prep – cake and dips can be done the day before, do as much chopping/cutting/mixing as you can early, freezing cake works
• Ingredients – check your cabinets 

L—List 

Live by lists to preserve sanity and avoid that feeling of forgetting something. Plus, husbands can help when the know what you are trying to accomplish.

• Invite List – all the other lists depend on the estimated number of guests 
• Grocery List – collect recipes, check cabinets, and determine what items you need to make your menu 
• To Do List – a comprehensive list of non-food items will help you stay on track
• Honey Do List – we had a random list of final projects that we had been putting off but we made a list and knocked it out 

A—Adapt 

• Your Space
• Your Food – know your audience 
• Your Layout – we changed the layout of our kitchen/living room to allow for ease of movement since we had 26 people coming to a tiny house 

N—Neaten Up 

Start earlier in the week. Do a room or two a day to avoid being overwhelmed. Clean as you cook. 

Theme: Christmas Housewarming

Colors: Red, green