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From Thanksgiving to New Year’s: 6 Must-Know Tips for Holiday Celebrations!

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Hosting season is upon us! For those who know me, know that this is my time to shine! 😉 From my Annual Halloween Party through to the New Year, I love to take every opportunity to host or join in on someone else’s amazing party. While I’m sure to pop in here with some holiday guest tips soon, today is all about the hosting. Those who are hosting a Thanksgiving dinner, Friendsgiving get together, Holiday open house, or Christmas shin-dig, this post is for you. While these tips work well for the holiday season, they really are universal for any home entertaining throughout the year.

6 Essential Hosting Tips for the Holiday Entertainer on KATU Afternoon Live

6 Tips for the Holiday Hostess

  • Invest in neutral serving dishes and service ware that can be used for many different occasions. While beautiful decorative platters absolutely wow, storing them year round can be a pain. While I do have a small collection of holiday-specific items, when it comes to service ware I try to keep it neutral. I collect white or dark wood platters so that they’ll coordinate together no matter the event. I also have sets of tongs and serving utensils in a simple metal so that it goes with everything.

Entertaining Essentials for Serviceware – Affiliate Links: 1) Oval Serving Platters 14.5 Inches, 2) Large Serving Bowls – Set of 2 3) Large Serving Platter Set of 3, 4) Classic White Serving Platters – Set of 4, 5) Large Solid Acacia Wood Serving Trays – Set of 3 , 6) Acacia Wood Cutting Board, 7) Acacia Wood Octagon Serving Trays – Set of 3, 8) Mango Wood Serving Platter – Set of 3 , 9) 3-Tier Rectangle Plate Set with Metal Stand, 10) 3 Tier Serving Stand Oval Porcelain Serving Bowl Set, 11) Acacia Wood Cupcake Stand, 12) Acacia Wood Tiered Tray , 13) Serving Utensils Set, 14) Drink Dispensers

  • As the saying goes, you feast first with your eyes! When hosting a buffet, setting up a dessert spread, or prepping a beverage station for guests, avoid the school cafeteria look of everything lined up side by side and instead layer items in with varying heights and depths. While you can absolutely find wonderful serving dishes that are tiered and ready to bring height to your table, they too can be difficult to store when not in use. I often hide sturdy cardboard boxes filled with heavy items or books under the table linens to create the desired height I’m looking for. It adds the interest you’re looking for with no extra cost. The best part about this trick is that it is more customizable than one-size platters.
  • Prep. I can’t say that enough. Even people who throw parties as often as I can get behind on the day of a party. (Thank you to my amazing friends who always pull through and pitch in moments before parties begin!) When hosting a large gathering it is imperative to scale down your day-of plans by either prepping days or weeks before the party or going the store-bought or restaurant-catered route.
    • Before party prep. Many food items can be cooked in advance, frozen or refrigerated, and reheated on the day. This is especially true of many holiday favorites such as green bean casserole, mac and cheese, or sweet potato casserole. When doing something like this, avoid putting on the toppings in the first preparation of the meal. Get everything done and frozen and then heat up nearly til done before adding the topping and finishing it off. It will keep the dish looking and tasting freshly made. Some items can be done a few days in advance and simply refrigerated such as baking pies or making cranberry sauce. Prep doesn’t stop at the food though. Setting the table, serving platters and all, leading up to the event will save precious moments on the day.
    • Don’t fear store-bought! I love preparing home-made dishes for the people I love. I love cooking! However, when planning a large gathering, I generally will choose one to three items that I will focus on to whip up myself and then allow myself shortcuts on other items.
    • The big trick to making store-bought or restaurant-catered feel like it belongs at your special event is plating the items on your own dishes and garnishing them! Store bought pie? Add some cheesecloth or a beautiful napkin around it with some twine to cover the metal tin. Cupcakes? Add an extra cupcake liner! Putting out store bought vegetable platter and dip? Put the dip into a bowl and add the vegetables to your platter, maybe add some sprigs of parsley!
Free Printable Downloads: Thanksgiving Menu – Fillable, Thank You Leftover Tags, & Thanksgiving Food Label Tags | Print on cardstock in full color and cut to borders. Hole punch where marked on tags. Use a PDF reader to fill the text in the fillable Menu.
  • Of course if we are using our neutral serviceware then we will want to put some holiday spirt in somehow. I like to add in my own special holiday twist with linens, printables, home decor items found around the house, and the season’s bounty! In the Fall I’ll pick up extra squash varieties and use them for decor, they’ll make great soups later in the season. Add in some beautiful fall leaves and branches from the yard. In the winter I’ll grab pomegranates and cranberries for pops of red and rosemary or garlands for pops of green.
  • While some may scoff at this next tip as an extra step that may not be necessary, I think it is the one tip I love the most. Guests may have a variety of dietary restrictions or even preferences that would make it helpful to know what they are about to consume. When serving a plated meal I like to add a menu, but when it is a buffet I like to add printable table tents to highlight dishes and main ingredients. This saves me from needing to repeat myself over and over again throughout the evening listing off what items are. It also helps guests feel more comfortable choosing items they know they’ll enjoy or be able to eat.
    • One of my favorite things to do at a potluck with friends and family who enjoy cooking is to ask them to send me their recipe (or send recipe cards to them) so I can create recipe cards for the dishes. I’ll set them alongside the dishes so people can see what is in the meal, but then if they really liked a dish they can take home the recipe to recreate it!
  • Big holiday dinners with family and friends wouldn’t quite be complete without leftovers brought out to enjoy the next day. Give your guests the ultimate gift by providing to go containers for them to fill with their favorites and take home to enjoy. It’s a favor for them and for yourself, because then you have less to deal with in your own fridge! 

I for one am excited about the holiday hosting season, and I hope that with these tips you can get excited as well.

What are your best tips for hosting during the holiday season? I’d love to know! Share in the comments below!

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A Well Crafted Party

Safe Entertaining: Navigating Parties as Things Open Up

No Comments A Well Crafted Party

For someone who owns a blog about entertaining—someone who feels entertaining is an integral part of her identity—the restrictions that came with this past year have been difficult. My love for entertaining and my identity are not as important as the lives of those around me, so I happily followed regulations. Plus, to be honest, working in healthcare this year has made it impossible to really even think much about hosting parties. Over the past year, following CDC and state health guidelines, I was able to do some safe entertaining and look forward to doing more as things open up a bit!

Why I’m Sharing Safe Entertaining Options After a Year of Pandemic Life

I chose not to share my safe entertaining options over the past year, because:

  • Seeing people’s opinions on the internet made me want to keep my thoughts to myself because I didn’t want to be ridiculed for following guidelines.
  • I was afraid of being judged for following safety guidelines that were less strict than other parts of the country.
  • Finally, I was nervous about encouraging people to get together knowing that regulations varied from county to county, across the country, and throughout the world.

But, now… things are (happily) starting to look different!

Things are starting to open up as vaccines are getting into people’s arms, mitigation efforts are working, and the weather is getting nicer. This will mean that people are going to be able to slowly start getting together even while following all health guidelines! I’m SO ready for that time. Though, unless we continue to follow guidelines, we could easily be back to lockdown if things spike again. I thought I’d share some of the things I did to help make entertaining be safe for my family as well as those of my guests.

Please note: I am not a medical specialist. I am not an expert in CDC guidelines. I do not know the rules of your state, county, city. Please use your own discretion and local health guidelines to make decisions regarding entertaining during this time. Those searching for safer ways to continue/start entertaining will find this post useful. If that is not something you are looking for, please know that I do not need to know. I’m okay with you making your own decisions.

Treats to send out in the mail for a virtual event

Coming Out of the Pandemic: Safe Entertaining Tips & Ideas

In my day job I’ve been working with marketing teams on creating safe event options that still allow them to connect with new people and create value. We’ve done everything from Virtual Happy Hours to Drive-By events where guests drive through to pick up fun items. When thinking about home entertaining you have those options as well as the potential for small gatherings as guidelines are updated. Below are my favorite safe ways to entertain.

The most important part of keeping events safe right now is communication. Communicate expectations and your own mitigation efforts. Make it easy and open to allow guests to cancel if sick or exposed to something. This is one part of the pandemic that I hope moves forward. Open communication is so important! I hope that the “us” of the future continues to make it polite to not come to an event while under the weather rather than going in fear of being rude by missing an event.

Note: Links below marked with an asterisk are affiliate links. Items purchased from affiliate links provide a small income to this blog at no cost to the purchaser.

Keep parties small:

Yes, I am ready for large events with all my friends too. I really, truly am. Until our numbers are low enough and enough people are vaccinated… we still need to keep the parties small. Local health guidelines will help guide you in how large your event can be. When allowed, I limited our outdoor engagements to people from a couple of different households. This helps to limit exposure if someone were to find out they were exposed or sick.

Entertain outdoors:

I know that it isn’t possible right now to have outdoor events in some areas in the month of March. However, we do know that it is much safer to get together with people outdoors rather than indoors. Grab a pop-up tent*, outdoor heaters*, and blankets. Make sure your chairs are 6 feet apart and serve up some warm drinks! We’ve been lucky enough to be able to host a couple of friends for book club meetings around our fire pit and a ladies night on the porch.

Don’t Spread Germs:

The days of grazing tables are over. At least they are for me. I am not sure I’ll be bringing them back into my parties for years to come. For now, I’m making it easy on myself by purchasing single-serve items from foods to drinks. Canned wine or spritzers work great for this! This is not sustainable as it is terrible for the environment. However, it is an easy way to serve guests without sharing serving utensils. Other ideas for this would include individualizing that grazing table and turning it into a single-serve charcuterie plate!

Keep supplies handy:

When we have people over outdoors we know that they may need to use our restroom. We ask that guests wear a mask inside our house, especially if someone is indoors while they go in. In case needed, we make sure we have extra masks*, plenty of sanitizers, and wipes placed in areas that are easy to grab without drawing attention. Even if no one uses them, I feel more comfortable knowing that if they wanted them they wouldn’t have to feel uncomfortable by asking.

When hosting activities, set up the supplies socially-distanced:

Hosting an outdoor baby shower or ladies’ craft night? Set up tables where guests can sit six-feet apart and have all of their supplies in front of them. I think having guests create DIY terrariums would be a perfect way to spend time with friends while safely engaged in an activity.

Go virtual!

Everyone and I mean everyone, is tired of zoom these days. I get it! However, one of the highlights of a really hard year was the fact that the few times that I did host virtual events I got to host them with some people that it would have been really hard to see in person even had there been no pandemic. My birthday party this year included my sister from Oklahoma, family from Texas, and friends living in Idaho, Portland, Spokane, and even across the street. I would have never have been able to get these people together in a non-virtual zone. Even after Covid is gone and we are back to hosting regular parties, I believe I will try to do at least one or two virtual events a year so I can keep connected to those friends that may have just been a text or Facebook message pre-pandemic.

Some specific safe-entertaining party ideas, shopping lists, and free invitations are coming to the blog over the next few weeks. In the meantime, I’d love to know how you’ve been able to keep connected over this past year. What type of entertaining were you able to do? What are you looking forward to as things open up? Share in the comments or message me on Instagram!

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A Well Crafted Party

Unicorn Superhero 4th Birthday

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My four year old was very particular about his party theme this year. This was the first year for him to have a “friend” party inviting neighborhood kids and his classmates. He wanted desperately to combine his two loves… superheroes and unicorns. Done…with joy I might add. I loved this theme!

This is a LONG post… if you don’t have time, but want to get the TLDR version, scroll down to the very bottom for the biggest takeaways!

We had so many kids that we had to have two tables set up. The floor table was set for older kids to enjoy a selection of cereals and treats.

His birthday falls into a really busy time for us. I traveled for work at the end of October and followed it with our annual Halloween party. Then my husband traveled for work the week between the Halloween party and his birthday. It was nuts.

Though life felt super crazy at this time, I really didn’t want his birthday to feel like it was an inconvenience or a second thought. Thankfully, we kept decor to a few installations and I was able to get it together with the help of a VERY good friend who was up with me til midnight blowing up balloons and creating a streamer rainbow.

Unicorn Superhero Birthday Party

Unicorns are incredibly popular right now. So are superheroes. Unicorn superheroes? A tad harder to find! I had fun creating the theme design. The decor, while impactful, was pretty simple in concept: streamers, confetti, and a whole lot of balloons!

I chose to do a balloon floor because what would be more fun for a four year old than a room full of balloons! It served as both a party activity AND decor. Because the balloons were on the floor I didn’t have to use any helium and they lasted for nearly two months. We created balloon garlands out of them after this party and used them for a party a full month later at another location and they still looked pretty great.

Rainbows were an easy way to please all who were involved. I loved the unicorn party supplies from Target.

Unicorn Superhero Birthday Party Decor Supplies

Note: All of the below links are affiliate links. Affiliate links give a small portion of a purchase to me if you purchase anything on this list. It is at no extra cost to you, but it does help support this blog. Thank you for supporting our blog.

  • Unicorn Straws – Target
  • Enchanted Forest Snack Plate – Target
  • Coordinating bowls, spoons, and napkins. Target, it is a one-stop shop!
  • Streamers – Amazon
  • Confetti – Amazon
  • Balloons – These days I make my own balloon garlands and such and have quite the collection of balloons. Amazon is my go to for balloons and I buy multiple sizes and store what I don’t use for later use. Unless you host often or have a ton of storage, I’d suggest getting a multi-color pack of balloons in a single size for the floor and a balloon garland kit in white for the cloud.
  • Unicorn Inflatable Pool Float
  • See all the Enchanted Forest party items from Target. Many of these would come together to make the sweetest party!
A view of the space before I added the fruit tray to the coffee table. The balloons were the biggest draw, but I also love the backdrop!

Making the rainbow wall backdrop

I knew I wanted a backdrop that would draw the eye when guests walked into the space. A friend came over and helped me get it up the night before the party so I really got to surprise my kiddo with it as well!

  1. Cut streamers in a variety of colors to the same length at the size you want for your backdrop. Ours was about 7.5 feet tall. Attach to wall using painter’s tape. We chose to just make it multicolored the whole way through, but you could also decide to do it in big chunks of color in the colors/order of colors of the rainbow.
  2. Create balloon garland out of white balloons and hang from ceiling. I used bakers twine and pins to attach it. The balloons were light weight enough that it didn’t take much effort. Try to center the balloons over the space where you have your rainbow streamers to cover up the painter’s tape as much as possible.
Choose your own cereal and donuts for the win!

Superhero Unicorn Birthday Party Food

Knowing I’d have a house full of kids and parents… I wanted to keep food pretty kid-friendly and simple to make. I decided to host a breakfast party!

These egg bites were so easy to make. I bought pre-cooked pastry shells and filled them with an egg mixture. One was vegetarian and the other had ham.

We hosted the party in the morning and served a variety of cereals, donuts, and fruit for the kiddos. I had a couple of varieties of milk (both dairy and non) and some allergy-friendly cereals. For the adults I served a big bowl of boiled eggs (many kids liked these too), egg bites, salad, fruit, and donuts. Drinks for the kids were milks and juices. The adults had mimosas and coffee. The donuts served as the birthday cake as well as a fun piece of decor.

Mimosa bar

Superhero Unicorn Birthday Party Activities

In my mind the story of this party was that the kids would come in as the wonderful unicorns they are and then learn how to be unicorn superheroes in our superhero training. Wrangling 16 kids for structured activities in a small space was a bit overwhelming, but the parents (and their kiddos) were SO amazing and game for anything that it really worked out well.

This is one happy 4 year old. 😀

Kids began the party by playing in the balloons until the majority of everyone was in attendance. We then ate breakfast. After breakfast we moved the plates away and used the table space to create our superhero costumes.

Laser obstacle course as part of unicorn superhero training

I found unicorn horns (affiliate link), superhero masks, and capes (affiliate link) affordably on Amazon. The capes and masks came with stickers that the kids were able to use to decorate their costumes. I tell you… there is nothing cuter than a bunch of excited little unicorn superheroes.

After the craft activity we explained the rules of the superhero training course. We got four parent volunteers to help with this process. It made it even more fun for the kids when they saw their parents participate.

Bad guys getting caught!

Two of the adults were our “bad guys” and they dressed up in black masks and had a bag of “stolen” goodies. I bought little bad guy kits (affiliate link) to make it look more authentic and filled the bags with unicorn party favors (affiliate link). The bad guys were instructed to do all of the activities FIRST so the kids could follow them.

  • Unicorn Superhero Warm Up: The kids followed my husband down the stairs to our family room where they had to do warm ups for the course. My oldest son led them in a series of easy exercises.
  • Crawling: The kids then had to crawl through a tunnel (affiliate link- I love these things!) to get to their accuracy training.
  • Accuracy Training: Two of the adult volunteers put on these outrageously funny unicorn hats (affiliate link) and the kids had to ring the unicorn before passing to the next part of the course.
  • Laser Obstacle Course: Streamers substituted as lasers for this Entrapment-esque challenge. It worked really well in our wide but long mudroom. I could see it also working in a hallway!
  • Catch the Bad Guys: The final challenge was to catch the bad guys! The bad guys led the way upstairs again where they sat down for a break. The unicorn superheroes then captured them by tying them to their chairs using streamers. Giggles ensued!

It all ended with the kids getting to get a favor from the robber’s bags. In the end, I feel like this was a super fun party!

I threw on this dress at the last minute because it was so colorful… at the end of the party we realized that I matched!

TLDR: Party Highlights

  • Breakfast time parties make for easy, kid-friendly foods! Keep it simple… cereal, donuts, and fruit were a total hit. Don’t forget the adults with some coffee and more savory items.
  • Four year olds don’t care about the fancy decor. Balloons, streamers, and confetti doubled as both party activities and decor.
  • Get the parents involved in the activities. It will make the kids more likely to participate and everyone will have a good time. Keep their participation super simple.
  • Putting together your own superhero unicorn party? Shop the supplies above (or from the box below) and help this blogger bring more fun ideas.

Cheers to all the unicorn superheroes out there. May your day be as unique and fun as my four-year-old is! If you liked this party please do me the favor of sharing on your favorite social media site. It really helps me create more content like this.

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