You don’t need to have a large, gorgeous home to host an amazing holiday party. Entertaining is possible even in the smallest apartment. Learn all you need to know about hosting a holiday party as a single woman in this article.
Why Host a Holiday Party?
If your family is like mine, Christmas dinner usually takes place at the grandparents’ house, or the home of the sibling with the largest home. Your friends are probably going home to see their families. And, if you’re single and childfree, you might have a tough time getting any time off around the holidays. But none of that means you can’t host an awesome holiday party.
For the last three years, I’ve hosted Christmas dinner for my family in my apartment. I’ve learned quite a lot about hosting fun-filled parties in a small space, thanks to a lot of trial and error. Luckily, you can avoid some of the error by reading this blog.
Preparing Your Home for Guests
If you have a large, comfortable home, all you’ll really need to do is tidy up and decorate. If you live in a smaller space, such as an apartment, your main concern will be fitting everyone into one room comfortably.
This usually involves picking the largest room (the living/dining area for me) and turning it into an eat-in parlor. You may have to:
- Rearrange furniture: This includes moving chairs, the table and sometimes even a sofa into the largest room.
- Borrow or buy furniture: I don’t own enough chairs to seat my guests, so it’s off to Habitat for Humanity for me.
- Do your decorating there: I set up my tree in my small, spare room, but I’ll move it into the living area so my guests can enjoy it.
This is usually the most work-intensive part for me, but it’s worth it to make sure my family feels relaxed and comfortable.
In the past, I’ve tried hosting a holiday party over two rooms. I arranged the living/dining area for dinner and my spare room for presents. This could work, if both rooms are equally spacious and comfortable. But all my good seating was in the dining room. If you’re in a small apartment, I don’t recommend it.
3 Rules for Hosting a Holiday Party
If you’ve planned things well and you like to play the hostess, this is the fun part. Your hosting skills will make or break your party. Based on my experience, there are just three major tricks to making sure your party goes smoothly.
1. Outsource
Don’t try to do everything yourself. This tip applies to every host who doesn’t have an assistant. But as solo women, we tend to feel the need to prove we can do it all our own. Trust me, you don’t.
Good hosts delegate and outsource to make sure they can take care of their primary job, which is keeping guests happy. Buy the dessert. Order a pre-cooked main course. Ask someone else to show up early to fold the napkins. If you try to do too much on your own, you’ll end up feeling frustrated and overwhelmed. And you probably won’t end up with a lovely spread and a picture-perfect party anyway.
2. Plan, plan, plan
I can’t stress this one enough. When you preparing a meal and entertainment for a group of people during a particular time, preparation is everything. Make a time chart for your cooking. Know when each item needs to go into the oven, how everything needs to be stored and where every dish is going to go. Set up a schedule and stick to it.
Lifehacker recommends Tom’s Planner dinner charts to help you stay organized on the big day.
3. Relax
Okay, I know the previous two points were all about how you have to organize and delegate to make sure everything is perfect, but you also have to take it easy. No matter how well you plan everything, something is going to go wrong. The good news is, if you don’t make a big deal about it, neither will your guests.
A shrug, a smile, and a quick solution are all you need to handle any unexpected problem. Did the scalloped potatoes overflow and land on the bottom of your oven? Oh well. No potatoes. Was that pre-cooked ham underdone? Switch to a buffet-style meal made up of all sides.
Your guests want to relax and enjoy themselves, so as long as you’re not flustered and stressed, they’ll be fine.
Remember, It’s Your Party
Hosting a holiday party is an excellent way to invite yuletide cheer into your home. Forget what pop Christmas song say. Your happiness at Christmastime has nothing to do with your relationship status.
Invite your family over. Invite your friends. Host a party for all your single co-workers. Ask everyone who’s away from home for the holidays to join you. This year, put yourself in charge of your Christmas cheer.
Do you have experience hosting a holiday party as a single woman? How did it go? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
