New Year's Alternative

New Year's Alternative
by PartyFan

If you have grown tired of alcohol fueled soirees full of people trying too hard to have a good time, staying up until midnight and later, worrying about your guests getting DWI's or worse, and other New Year's Eve annoyances, but you still enjoy hosting parties, consider the alternative of a New Year's Day party. This can be a wonderful event, enjoyed just as thoroughly by your guests, perhaps even more than the Eve.

Families are more likely to attend and have a good time, but the singles will show up and enjoy themselves if you do things right. I'm going to rely on a party that a friend of the family threw every year, that was very well attended, and enjoyed by all, as an example of how to do things right. I'd say her parties were legendary, but mostly they weren't talked about - yet everyone in the world showed up, at least for a quick drop-in to pay respects (which often turned into staying for "just a little while longer").

When I asked a few people who had attended her parties to tell me what the best thing about these events was, the first thing everyone mentioned was food. Yet no one mentioned the same food! That brings up our first tip - lay out a good spread, and the guests will come. Variety, variety, variety. I remembered fresh fruit platters, hollowed out pineapples filled with chunks of all sorts of goodies. Another person mentioned stuffed mushrooms, and artichoke dip. Yet another the bowls of fresh cherries and short, sweet Mexican bananas. Meatballs, lasagna, cakes, pies, chips, dips, hamburgers and hot dogs for the kiddies, you name it and there was probably a platter of it. Now she knew the party would be well attended, but there were still always leftovers, and I heard she had an arrangement to give them away to some local places that could use them - nursing homes or somewhere similar - and she had some of the guest take home plates as well.

You'll want to imitate the variety, but do try to keep the amount of food reasonable to the amount of guests you can expect to show up, especially if this is your first time throwing such a party. Once you get the tradition started, if you want to start a tradition, you can go more and more overboard as your party gets more and more attendance. This can be a chicken and the egg situation: the better the spread, the better your attendance; the better your attendance, the better you can do the spread. Don't be afraid to experiment, and while she never used full-service catering, I'm sure she didn't do everything herself, it wouldn't have been possible.

The next most common praise I heard was about the guests. Again, variety, variety, variety! There were always interesting people to chat with, folks that you might not normally encounter in your daily routine. Invite everyone you can think of, not just your close circle of friends or co-workers, and make sure the people you invite feel free to invite others. Do your potential guests have holiday visitors from out of town? Tell them to bring them along! The more the merrier. If you have space constraints or can't afford to feed the world, then you'll have to tone this down, but you do so at the risk of a having a homogeneous group of party goers boring each other with stories they've already heard. Everyone knows a character or two, so if you have to limit the guest list, make sure the characters you know are on it first and that will help avoid this potential buzz kill.

Have some booze available. It doesn't have to be a large quantity, or top shelf stuff, just cover the basics without resorting to generic rot-gut. There will be some folks who will enjoy having a cocktail, but most of the serious drinking people will have indulged the night before and will be unlikely to tie one on.

Don't start the party too early. Even people who didn't party hardy may have stayed up until the clock rolled over, and they will want to sleep in. You probably won't have to worry about the party running too late, by around sundown most people will have had about all the New Year's fun they want to have, but having a reasonable ending time won't hurt. If you do decide to shut things down at a certain time, make sure your guests know about it in advance.

Make a television available. Usually this is a distraction you don't want at a party, but in this case it is better to make an exception. You still don't want it to be a big distraction, so try to keep it out of the way and not in a central area, but having it there will be a plus. These parties always had a TV on in the den, so that people interested in the college football games could pop in and watch for a bit. If that outlet wasn't there, I'm sure some of the sports fans would have passed on the party, and being able to watch the games in the company of other folks to talk football with I'm sure was a plus. No one stayed glued to the set for all that long, and many casual viewers enjoyed being able to pop in for a moment, get an update, watch a few downs, and chat a bit.

I could go on and on, but I think that I've covered all the major areas: variety in both food and guests, just a little booze, not too early, and give the sports fans an outlet. There were other traditions to be followed (decor, certain regional dishes, good luck symbols and myths, etc), but yours will vary by region and personal taste. Make your party unique by using your own ideas and creating your own traditions. Feed them well, and they will come!

Have a good time, and Happy New Year!