Hostess

I’m totally in my element when I’m hosting a party. Whether it’s cocktails and crudité, football and chili, or pizza and piñatas, I get geared up to be the hostess.

When I was in college, my friends would come to visit me in my little rented cottage on the lake. I’d host dinner parties with lasagna and chicken parmesan and red wine, which was a huge step up from the ramen and cheap vodka we were so used to, and my friends exclaimed, “Girl, you’re so… domestic!” I still get together with those girls and our gaggle of kids and I’m reminded of how far we’ve come.

After college, I rented an apartment on my own, just outside of Boston. It was a beautiful apartment, but I was living on my own in a new city and I didn’t know a soul. I was five weeks into my first year of teaching (and my first year of adulting), and I didn’t really have any friends yet. It was time for parent-teacher conferences, and my new apartment was less than a mile from the school where I worked. So I decided to host a dinner party for my colleagues, between 3:00 when school got out, and 5:00 when conferences started. I set up a buffet table, complete with foil pans and sterno burners. Over ziti and meatballs, I made lifelong friends.

At that same apartment, I began the short-lived tradition of the “End of the Year Luau.” The luau was definitely NOT a dinner party. It was a full-on boozy bash replete with cheap inflatable decorations and plastic ‘coconut’ bras from the Oriental Trading Company. There were cheesy party games that nobody wanted to do but everybody enjoyed; in the morning there were people passed out on every soft surface and my potato chip bowl was halfway down the block in the middle of the street. The second year I hosted this, my landlord stopped by. I was terrified. He laughed at the look of panic on my face and asked for a margarita. The third year, I was pregnant, and my friends repurposed all of my cheap decorations. The Luau took the form of a baby shower. Times they were a-changin’.

There have been so many parties since; first birthdays, housewarming parties, New Year’s bashes, Superbowl parties. Some guests appear in each and every memory; old friends who have moved with me from tequila shots to chicken nuggets. Some of the faces were cherished for a season; friends who were close for a time and then lost touch. Some have been tragically lost, through accidents or illness. Some of the faces have evolved from children to adults; the time passes so quickly.

But these memories help me to hold each of these people in my heart. I can hear their laughter and remember their stories and revel in the fact that we experienced joy together.

That’s what hosting a party is for me. Sure, there’s the frantic cleaning and cooking. There might be some shouting at the kids to clean up the dog doo in the yard and get their laundry out of the bathroom. I’m lucky to be married to a rockstar host who busts his butt to make sure that the house looks great and there’s plenty of food and our guests feel at home.

But there comes a point when people arrive and there’s no time left to clean or cook. Friends offer a hand and the drinks get poured and the food gets served and the party begins. The laughter reverberates. The kids begin to run and shout and spill and crash and the adults dish up pasta and referee arguments and sip on wine and tell stories. And those moments are reserved for enjoyment. There are no bills to be paid or calls to be made or papers to be graded. There will be no vacuuming or folding or dusting. There is a simple objective in that moment- to enjoy each other. We appreciate the talents and quirks and passing stages of our friends and family. We remember that we are loved and we have people to love.

In my mind, that’s the purpose of a party. It reminds us to stop taking ourselves so seriously and to be grateful for our abundant gifts. It reminds us to pause and be joyful.