Holiday Party preference

[Unorthodox]

This week begins the Christmas Party Cavalcade as our neighborhood's party is this evening, and a formal event later in the week. 

So, what kind of party do you prefer?

The Formal event:

Work, or Family.  Catered, dressy, usually with paid entertainment.  We have one of these coming up.   I would actually tend to enjoy this EXCEPT for the fact that Catering TYPICALLY sucks when you have large groups. 

Casual/Organized:

Like above, but without the dressing up.  Usually at a location rather than someone's house. hEt's family is big enough to fall into this category and rent out places, but they mix it with the pot luck. 

Casual Open House:

No dinner, just light fare.  Casual social gathering.  We got our neighborhood one going tonight. 

The Pot Luck:

Go-to for lots of people.  Everyone bring your own dish and let's eat! 

Lunch/Dinner:  Eat and go, maybe some social time.  Free lunch is the go-to for a lot of businesses, and a lot of Family parties fall into this category. 

Festivus!

I got a lot of problems with you people!  (google it if you need)  I'm having a Festivus party with some former co-workers on the 23rd. 

Bah Humbug!

If this were truly an option, I might just fall into here. 

Other. 


Personally, I like the lunch/dinner and go.  Light socializing, usually small groups.  Thus mixing with the Festivus meal for some friends. 

[Rusty Edge]

I've been to some good formal corporate Christmas parties in hotels with hired entertainment, but that's sort of like saying I've been to some good wedding receptions that found the balance between eating/drinking/visiting and entertainment- It's hard to get 4 out of 4.

I said Casual Open House. That's sort of what my wife does for her extended family( it's small ) the day after Christmas. With our hard floors and cathedral ceiling it gets a little loud and unintelligible for my impaired hearing, but it works for the other adults. It's the closest thing they have to an annual family reunion. I usually retreat to the kitchen and make drinks as it fills up.

My all time favorite was the Christmas Tea my mother put together for the last few years on the family farm, her idea. It was a Sunday afternoon and evening thing. My mother made pies, I made cookies. My sister or step-father made box brownies or lemon bars. There were also Swedish meatballs and other light fare, but it was mostly a pie and coffee kind of thing.

She sent out invitations with various two hour windows, asking people to stop by for coffee and dessert, and to bring a donation for the local food bank. So it started with church people, transitioned into neighbors, business assosciates and friends ( last to leave ) by evening. People stayed around according to how good of a time they were having, or if they had to go milk, attend another party, etc. Two or three people were good story tellers, and were naturally the main entertainment. But there was no awkwardness about anyone saying thank you and goodbye and making room on one of the couches.

The trick was in organizing the guests to have something in common to talk about besides the weather and the pie. My Mom was an executive secretary by trade, and organizing the list and sending out invitations wasn't that daunting for her.

[Unorthodox]

The neighborhood party got rained out, usually on the street around fire pits, they had to move indoors.  Ill contained utter chaos would describe it.  Too packed and loud for my taste in that setting, but otherwise went well. 

One down, only have a few more to survive.  Next comes Friday. 

That tea sounds like an utter nightmare to organize.   

[Rusty Edge]

That tea sounds like an utter nightmare to organize.

I'm sure it was. Fortunately all I had to do in that regard was add a couple who were friends of mine to the guest list. It only lasted two or three years, and then my family relocated and dispersed, but it was fun while it lasted.

My Mom's no slouch when it comes to pastry, she got a second place at the fair. These days she's more geared towards making meals for delivery to the sick/bereaved/shut-ins etc. More apple dumplings than pies.

I should visit during sweet corn season one of these years so that I can help her freeze enough to support her meal making project. Processing corn is too much work for her to do primarily herself, so she stopped.

[Valka]

Nowadays, I'm in the "Bah, humbug" category. I don't do parties. I don't visit people unless they're neighbors in my apartment building, and those are just casual chats. I don't entertain people (since I don't even own a couch or kitchen table it would be a bit awkward anyway).

What I really miss is the Christmas Eve/Boxing Day get-togethers my dad's side of the family had. We'd have the whole turkey supper and opening presents on Christmas Eve, my parents and I would go to my mom's grandmother's place on Christmas Day (boring time for my cousin and I unless somebody took us tobogganing or I found an unguarded candy dish). The adults spent the afternoon playing Rummoli, but never let me join them. Boxing Day was when my grandmother's friends would come over for a visit - coffee, something to eat, the adults would play cards, we kids would play board games, and some years I'd play the organ for them. Since the kind of music they liked was the kind I play well, it worked out nicely. And one of my grandmother's friends paid me a compliment I've never forgotten: I was playing a waltz, and this lady - very serious about her card games - tossed her cards down on the table, got up, and started to dance.

We haven't had any Christmases like that in nearly 20 years. Most of the people I mentioned are dead now. My dad is now in a nursing home in a town I can't get to (no transportation) and it felt like a slap in the face to get a form letter inviting me to a Christmas party there where I'd have to pay for my meal (the local nursing home allowed family to attend parties for free). So my dad and I will be spending Christmas apart.

This year Christmas for me is an excuse to order a few things from Amazon (which should be arriving this week or next) and eat chocolate.

Yes, I'm in a bad mood.

[Rusty Edge]

Well there's some parties I don't like.

My Dad was one of 10 kids. We would often go to my paternal grandparents' house on Sunday afternoons, so it's not as if Christmas was the only time I got to see my cousins, aunts and uncles. In fact, we were seeing all of them at once for Thanksgiving, which tended to overfill the house.

Anyway, we usually had this Christmas party the Saturday before Christmas. Gift exchange was more of a burden than joy of generosity, because there were too many. Too much stuff to haul to and from the party, too long to open stuff, too much one gift for all, too little joy of giving, because we didn't know everybody well enough to know what they had, needed, liked, or wished for. Drawing names and bringing grab-bag gifts was even less personal.

Of  course there was more to it than that. Food. One of my aunts was great at making cream pies, another made particular types of cookies that I loved, but never got the rest of the year. Mostly, the food wasn't that great compared to my mother's cooking. I have one uncle who makes noodles and pasta from scratch- his stuff was pretty good, and one elder cousin ( daughter of the aunt who made cookies ) who became a foodie. If they were cooking, it was good. If not, maybe I could fill up on meat, bread and potato of some kind.

A couple of the family are musically gifted, but I was tone deaf even before I was hearing impaired. I don't like to sing in public. Turning the party into a prayer & share hymn sing thing, or a talent show is torture for me, and somebody or other was always eager to turn the event into one of the two. Praise the Lord for the drivers licenses, which enabled me and my sibs to start home to feed the animals when that happened.

My siblings and I formed a non-aggression pact. We stopped buying each other gifts once we got married and moved away, and got sucked into other family traditions. No way were we turning a favorite holiday into a burdensome torture session the way our Dad's family did...

Instead, when we were all in the same time zone we'd go out together to see a movie on Christmas day. We did something similar on the 4th of July, only we would go out to eat, too.
Those were more fun. We were doing stuff we might normally do, only together.

A couple years ago my wife said that my family doesn't care about or celebrate Christmas the way hers does. I had to laugh. No, we care a lot, enough to keep it fun and stress-free. No duties or obligations to travel, spend money, or be nice to somebody you don't want to see. No stress.

 But it's also a gift to all of our in-laws to support their traditions. If we were spending Christmas with my family on an equal time basis, it would wreck the two Christmas parties my wife organizes every year.  It would put holes in the Christmas pictures. My wife wouldn't get to pass out the gifts she has shopped for, or see people open them. And if she were skipping out on Christmas half of the time, more of her family would probably do the same.

[ColdWizard]

Corporate dinners on back to back nights. I may not be able to stubborn my way out of both of them.