The party season maybe all about fun and festivity, but sometimes those two words can seem a long way apart. Here are some tips that you won’t get from anyone else.
As we trudge towards New Year’s Eve, past dim office windows where tinsel glitters sadly around the screens of infinite PCs, it quickly becomes clear that one size of party does not fit all. This is the season for party tips – they come in books and blogs and on the side of cans of tonic. But woe betide if you follow the right advice with the wrong crowd. And at my age, we’re all the wrong crowd. So…
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How to throw a party (if you’re 30-something parents with only childless friends)
The problem with having a baby and wanting to party (verb) is the morning after. The 6.30am, still dark outside. The child standing up in their cot, and us croaking, “What do you want?” and them, their whole bodies saying, “Everything.” The Weetabix, the Gruffalo, the singing. Every day. Including those which come hungover, after a party which somewhere is still going on.
Tip 1: Forget everything It’s hard to get into the swing of it when you are heavy with the knowledge that death is everywhere. When, having created life, you now understand its fragility. When you are responsible not just for this party kicking off, but for a whole person’s survival. The canapés become very important. Blinis are distractions from death. Hanging there from the light fitting, a piñata filled with the past. At some point it will be smashed to pieces, spilling truth all over the rug. Until then, concentrate on the blinis. They’re nice.
Tip 2: Behave, please After a drink, the grass on the other side appears not only greener, but sexier, funnier and hasn’t seen you expressing milk in a service station. But flirting in front of your child is vulgar. You don’t want their first memory to be you stroking a stranger’s cableknit bicep.
Tip 3: Start early Like the act of having children itself, there are benefits to getting it out of the way early. If you start a party at 5pm, the tides will come in and out in time for everyone to be home, dazed before the Uber surge.
How to throw a party (if everyone you know is heartbroken)
Welcome to cuffing season, the months where single people attempt to chain themselves together in order to have someone to watch Luther with through the terrible winter. They begin here, in a mess of shattered hearts, on a dancefloor made by pushing the sofa over a bit.
Tip 1: No lights The line between tears and laughter is slippery. Nudge your guests across it, keeping the room dark enough to allow for small crying fits when the Mariah Carey mix unlocks their pain vault.
Tip 2: No judgment Judging is fun and a great hobby. But when you’re around vulnerable people all dressed up, you must be cool, ice cool when one of them gets off with their sister’s ex, or dances for their boss. As everybody knows, the sex window is open between 12 and two, after which only evil occurs. Until then, look away.
Tip 3: No phones On phones, darkness lies. Photos of happier times, Tinder, the potential to message an ex from the loo. Have your party in a WiFi blackspot. In a valley. Because also, who’s going to call? Everyone else is in love.
How to throw a party (if your friends are in that limbo between old and young and nothing fits)
When you’re neither 20 nor 40 and wake feeling like two people, both of them anxious, parties can remind you of all your failures. You’re no longer able to stay up all night experimenting with your sexuality, but neither are you quite settled in the suburbs. In your heart, anyway.
Tip 1: Beautify One way lost people try to ground themselves is by posting photos. Help by making everything highly Instagrammable, and let them pretend they’re having a time that is at least 60% more fun.
Tip 2: Invite an elderly person One granddad will bring the median age of the room up to an acceptable level, and remind the 34-year-olds: you can still be the life of a party with a false hip.
Tip 3: Nostalgia Slide your nostalgia in quietly, so your guests don’t even realise you’ve tricked them into dancing with a Salt-N-Pepa remix, or Findus pancake platter. And then, when everyone is 16 again, let the bacchanalia begin.
[Source:-the gurdian]