Things Northern Women Know

Supposedly, Southern women are known for three things:  their gracious hospitality, having ostensibly big hair, and for saying things only Southern women can say.  These three facts are all fine and dandy with me and I’m not here to dispute them.  Being a Northern girl, however, I would like to point out Northern women do know a thing or two about hospitality.  It’s too windy and cold here to worry about big hair, anyway!

One thing I know is that hospitality is about bringing people together.  First and foremost, parties/get-togethers/dinners/whatevers should have the point in mind to connect people with each other.  Time is a precious gift that slips away all too fast.  Use this entertaining time to deepen your relationships with people in your life.  I’ve been to way too many holiday dinners where the host was too busy cooking to even notice their guests.  That is so wrong!  Drop your apron, put away the mixing spoon, and visit with your guests already!  Plan your menu early and make as much of it as you can ahead of time.

Can you think of fun activities that will bring your guests together?  Here’s some ideas to get started.  Have you ever tried the card game Apples to Apples?  This is a hilarious conversation starter.  What about making a central place for all the food so people will naturally gather by each other?  Another way I’ve found to get people together is to have something that everyone has a stake in participating.  During the holidays, having a white elephant gift exchange is always fun.  What about at other times of the year?  Divvy up the menu, have everyone bring their favorite appetizer, or request everyone bring a copy of a picture that would be meaningful to the group.

Another thing I know about hospitality is that even a teensy bit of effort on your part to set the scene will pay off.  Setting the scene means exactly that- imagine that you are in a movie and you are responsible for setting the background of where the movie takes place.  Places to concentrate on are those empty, bare spots that could have some kind of accent on them.  Table and counter tops, mantels, and book shelves are top contenders begging for an accent.  Florist bows, natural items like sticks and evergreens, table runners, an interesting sort of container, and dollar-store faux florals usually will do the trick nicely.

That’s right, I said florals from the dollar store.  My dollar store always has seasonal florals that are just right for an accent or background interest.  Not only do they have decent florals, they have lots of unique shapes of dishes to put them in, floral foam, floral wire, and seasonal items that make awesome arrangement accents.  Thank you Dollar Tree!

Finally, it should be noted that hospitality doesn’t have to cost you a fortune.  As mentioned above, I frequent my Dollar Tree store, well, frequently.  Aldi’s grocery store has also been pulling out the big guns lately and has some incredible cheese and entertaining selections.  This isn’t the Aldi’s of your childhood; it’s the Aldi’s where Brie,Chevre, and Manchengo cheese are right next to the lunchmeat and canned biscuits.  I will also have to say that, although it is a dangerous place for me to go, Goodwill can be depended on for baskets, dishware, unique containers, garden pots, and books.  Linens, faux flowers, metal ware, and matching sets of items can be hit-or-miss.  Usually, though, if I’m looking for a particular thing to set a scene, I can find it second-hand at Goodwill.

So, what does it look like when I use these three principles for a party?  I thought you’d never ask!  Last night, I hosted my dad’s side of the family for a  family game party.  We haven’t done a game night before as a family so I thought it would be fun to give it a try.  Not surprisingly for my family, nobody RSVP’d until a day or so before so I wasn’t sure how many people I’d need to feed.  I set a budget for myself of $50 for food and any other decorations.  In all, I spent about $60, just over what I had planned on.  Here’s what I did:

1.  I started looking on Pinterest for ideas about appetizers.  This picture from inspiredbycharm.com caught my eye right away

I loved this picture the moment I saw it.  Ignoring the fact that it is probably too fancy for a family game party, I began planning out what mine would look like.  Here’s what I came up with:

It took me a while to plan out the space using the original photo.  I also had to look up a lot of pictures on pinterest regarding appetizers.  For example, did you know that, in order to build a proper cheese tray, you need sharp, nutty, creamy, fresh, and funky types of cheese?  I ended up deciding that I needed to get 2 types of hard meat, 2 types of lunchmeat, 4 types of cheese, nuts, sliced fruit, dried fruit, 2 types of crackers, 2 types of breads, asparagus, and 5 small crudites to put in the wine glasses.  Next stop, Aldis.

Referring back to my $50 budget, I think I did pretty good:

 And here’s what you get for $51.46:

!  This, of course, isn’t exactly what I had set out for but it was a great haul!  The next step was finding a large picture with a decorative frame and acquiring some mismatched wine glasses.  My attic had just the right picture and Goodwill had an excellent selection of $0.99 glasses.  A little linen under the frame and over the frame kept me from having to pull out the picture.  The original posting says to do this on a mirror, which I think would look pretty nice.

 So, here it is all set for the food.  Now, here’s the surprising part.  My husband wandered into the kitchen and started arranging things on the tray shortly after I took this picture!  Good thing I had a plan drawn up already, it made it so easy to have a helper.  Together, we finished the display and (drumroll, please)

 !  It didn’t turn out that they tray was too fancy.  Everyone who came over commented on how great it looked and how nice the food was spread out.  Having something a step up from what was expected made that little bit of difference that I talked about above.  I found out that there are a couple of unexpected benefits to having food spread out like this:

• People could stand on either side of the counter and reach it.  That made it really easy to get together as a group and talk.
• As people brought food, we just moved things around a bit and added to it as we went along.
• It looked a lot more expensive that it really was

  Hopefully, this post show that even a real “dummy” can successfully host a great party!

  (This is my new sister-in-law and my mom’s “friend,” Charlie)

Thanks for reading all the way through my first blog post.  Let me know if you’ve ever done something different with serving food at a party.  I’d love to hear your ideas!