The Lazy Genius Podcast - #42: The Lazy Genius Hosts a Holiday Party

Episode Date: December 4, 2017

Don't be afraid. It can be really fun to host a party, so if you're thinking of sliding one into your December calendar, I've got you covered. Stuff Mentioned: How to Never Run Out of Food at a Party Quit Throwing Fancy Bridal Showers (some food philosophy hangs out here) Favorite recipe sources: The Kitchn (great for beginners), Smitten Kitchen (better for folks with some cooking chops), Amanda Frederickson (smack dab in the middle), Mad Hungry (simple and accessible... this book and this book get a lot of play around here), and Mark Bittman (not for newbies or people who need photos... I don't use his site but do use How to Cook Everything and How to Cook Everything Fast on an almost weekly basis) Holiday Mixtape by Nick Flora and Stacy Lantz This podcast is hosted by Kendra Adachi and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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This is Kendra and you are listening to The Lazy Genius Podcast. Here, I am going to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Today's episode is episode 42. The Lazy Genius hosts a holiday party. Y'all, throw in parties is one of my favorite things ever, like literally ever. And the holidays are full of parties to attend. But what if you want to throw one of your own? Today I'm going to share with you the Lazy Genius Way.

to approach hosting a holiday party. As is true with many things around here, there is a particular mindset we want to cultivate and a particular order you'll want to plan. So we're going to go through the party planning process right here and just three lazy genius steps. Like the rate, they are so easy to remember and they are going to be such a huge help for you whenever you throw your next party, which maybe is even in the next week or two if you want to be spontaneous. Okay. So these three steps are three words. purpose, mood, and people. PMP. Pump without the you. Because planning parties can get you pumped, man, right? Is that too dumb? Okay, it's fine. I think you're still going to remember.

So purpose, mood, and people. Those are the three things. In that order, in that order, that will really determine your party. All the other stuff, food, decorations, the music, what you're going to actually do. Those are honestly the easy part. And they've, become incredibly easy once you pump your party. You see, you're super good to remember this. Okay, so let's start with step one. Purpose. This one has two parts, the purpose for you and the purpose for your guests. So first, why do you want to host a party? What is in it for you? Now, this is not meant to scare you into not throwing one or like forcing you to confront all these issues about wanting to impress people. This is not deep. Like really, why do you want to host a party? Do you like having

your friends together all at once? Does filling your home up with people make you super excited and happy? Do you want a chance to cook all the food? You don't usually have reason to make. Do you want to show off your home because you've been renovating it forever and now it looks like an actual place that people can come? Like your purpose, it doesn't need to be deep or philosophical or anything. Y'all, I was through a party. This is no joke. I was through a party where my purpose was to find the best carrot cake recipe in the world. I'm super serious. So like carrot cake is my favorite cake, but I never made one before. And so in very, you know, like what normal people do, I made nine. I made nine carrot cakes from different recipes from the internet that all claim to be the best. And then

I invited all my friends over for a carrot cake tasting party. And then I tasted those cakes with great purpose. And then I created a master carrot cake recipe that I make all the time now. So like, When I say that your purpose can literally be anything, it can literally be anything, obviously. I am a really bad poster child for that. Okay, so that's the first part of the first P of your purpose, right? What's in it for you? What is your personal purpose? Now, the second part, what is the purpose for your guests, for your friends?

Why do you want to host a party for them? Maybe you want your friends from like all your different circles to meet each other because you're always talking about Jenny from work or your best friend from college, but no one has actually met each other. Maybe you want to create a really fun party for your friends who have little kids that they can leave behind at their house and go be grownups for a little bit. Or maybe you want to throw a party for those same friends where they can bring their kids and you don't have to pay for a babysitter for once.

You know, that could be a real thing. P.S. If you are, here's just a quick idea. If you are a parent of little kids, because it is so, hard to find babysitters all the time and you wanted to throw a party it doesn't necessarily have to be a holiday party but just in general if you ever wanted to throw a party for your friends um totally throw one and say like bring the kids and then part of your party budget is you hire a couple of babysitters to like watch the kids in the backyard or i mean at christmas time that might not work depending on like

if you live in minnesota that might not be a thing um but you can actually like put child care into your your party budget and then just tell your friends like hey we got to sitters, man. Bring her kids. It's great. So that's just a little side note. Okay, so what's your purpose for a guest? Do you want them to have conversations? Do you want them to have fun laughing? Like, what is in it for them? This is not coming from a place for people pleasing, like in the negative sense. You know, like, what's in it for them? Like, are they going to leave and they're going to be so happy? It's more like helping you identify what you hope your guest experience specifically when they're at your party because that's a real thing knowing that purpose and your own personal purpose will help guide you

into a party that you look forward to planning and that your guests your friends they're going to look back on it really fondly okay so that's the first step purpose step two mood that's the p of the m in the pump so step two is mood how do you want your party to feel what's the mood now that you know your purpose I want you to imagine the mood of that particular party. You're going to choose two to three mood words that are literally your inspiration and direction for everything else. Is it loud? Like festive? Comfortable.

Casual. Pazazzy? Entertaining. Mellow. Intimate. Routy. Sparkly. Nostologic.

Your mood words will give you such great direction as you plan for really. real. Now sometimes I will catch myself thinking, well, I want it to be really cozy, but it's fine if it gets loud. But I do hope there's some good vulnerable conversations and oh, maybe we could like play a game. And then I just like abandon shit because all of that cannot exist together. I just can't. Or I end up trying to throw that party where like I'm trying to hit all those moods and it just feels awkward and forced and it just doesn't work. Okay. If your party has multiple personalities, it'll get stressful for you and your people will roll fast. Like, let's say you have a friend who is a little more introverted and not into big parties

and you really want her to come to yours. And at this point, your party has multiple personality disorder and you say to her, I won't be that many people and it'll probably be really chill because you do kind of hope that, but you also are inviting 40 people and are going to play Mariah Carey's Christmas album super loud. And so like your friend walks in and all these people are playing like, pin the tail on the reindeer at top volume and she's like I'm out like this is not the mood I find up for you know we really do often want it all when it comes to parties and we usually can't we

usually can't have it all so you can have it all across multiple parties there's not in the same one so think about your purpose and then choose two or three mood words this don't laugh at that mood worth it's a real choose two or three mood words that describe how you want your party to feel and be specific and don't get greedy. Don't get greedy with your mood. You cannot have a lively and quiet in the same set of words. Okay. Don't get greedy. All right. So we have our purpose. We have our mood. And now it's time for the final step. Step three, people. Final P and the pump. We're going to pump our party. So why is this last? If you start with people too soon, you're really in trouble. Trust me on that. If you don't identify that you want a party full of

relational conversation, inviting 40 people is not going to work. You know, like if your purpose is you want to sit around and have like real conversations with people, you cannot invite 40 people. You just can't do it. Now a holiday party is a little different in inviting or any kind of party, I guess, and inviting just like a couple of families over for burgers. You know, like there's more of an expectation of a mood of a purpose of like a huge spread of food. Like please don't ignore that. So you can be as casual as you want, but like parties by nature are celebrations of something. So it is okay to come at this with more purpose, like making an actual guest list, like on purpose, which can feel a little weird, right? You don't want anyone to feel badly for not being invited. It feels terrible when you

are not invited to something or when you are the person doing the inviting and can't invite everyone. It is. It's really hard. And you want everyone who comes to like have fun and get along. So if you feel squarely around this part is totally normal, I think. So don't feel badly about feeling squirly. All right. So when it comes to people and remember to keep your purpose and your mood words in mind, start with the people who absolutely must be there. Like you really need them to be there. Don't start with your contacts app on your phone or your Facebook friends list and then just scroll alphabetically. If you start making a list of people like that, it'll be so long and you will quit your party planning and just stay home and watch white Christmas. Which is,

is not bad, but you want to throw a party, right? So let's be purposeful. So start with people that you must have there. And from there, you can branch out, right? Who fits the purpose? And who would socially enjoy the mood you're creating? If you're throwing a giant party and your mood words are lively and loud, your highly introverted friends might not be as into it. If you're throwing a party for parents with little kids, inviting people who don't have little kids might not make as much sense, right? If you want to party with the purpose of conversation, don't invite a bunch of people who don't know each other. You see how the people need to come last? It just helps so much, okay? And if it does help, you can create limits for yourself, like only friends from the

neighborhood, or people who already know each other, or people who absolutely don't know each other at all, or just friends from your church, or just parents from school who you don't get to hang out with outside of like PTA meetings and you know school pickup and stuff like the list of limits I guess is pretty vast but that might help you so if that's helpful to create that boundary go for it we are going to get into some specific scenarios here in a second but for now just be kind to yourself about not being able to invite every single person you know um it's real I understand um one of my party rules one of my guessless rules is I always make sure that everyone who is invited knows at least two people that are not me.

Especially with a bigger crowd, you know, like nobody can talk to everyone all the time. I can't talk to everyone all the time. And if I wish I could, if that could be my superpower, oh, that would be so great. And if a friend comes and they only know me and maybe even one other person, but that person also happens to be involved in conversation, my friend is left alone, you know? And that's not okay. So I just have that rule of thumb that you might want to adopt as well, especially for bigger groups where it's like harder. Like, you know, when you go to a party with a big group with a big group, it's naturally going to form into smaller groups, right?

Little circles of conversation. And so it can be really hard to insert yourself in one of those circles if you don't know anybody in that circle, right? It's a really tough. So I just really like to make sure that everyone knows at least two people who are not me, unless they are a super extroverted person who's never met a stranger. in that case your party's like an amusement park and they will have so much fun. All right. So let's talk about the number of people. We're still on people.

We're still on step three. Let's talk about the number of people for a second. If a bigger number makes sense with your purpose and your mood and your people, think logistically. Do you have space for it? I realize this is a very obvious question. But just think back to parties you've been to in the past where there were a lot of people. What was the space like?

What was the house like or wherever it was? How did everyone seem to feel when it was a little bit more crowded like that, right? Did mutual friends at the party comment on how the house was too hot or too quiet or too divided among the rooms or, you know, try and think back to other party experiences and pull from the like successes and maybe mistakes of others? We're not trying to create a perfect party. That's not what this is about. We're just paying attention to the details that surround whatever matters to you. okay so think think logistics is your house about the same size as a friends who had 30 people over and it just felt too crowded then cap your list at 20 you know like just try and pull from other party

experiences especially when it comes to numbers and then what about small parties where everyone is in the same room those can be fun too like totally if you want that kind of party consider your guest list there as well um like do you have a lot of quiet, more introverted friends. Having a room mostly full of people who don't like to initiate conversation could be a little bit tricky. So maybe consider inviting someone who is good at conversation, who is good at like asking questions and kind of getting people involved. I think we all know someone like that who's just really good at keeping conversation rolling without being like, you know, like showboating and being a car salesman. Like some people are just really good at that.

or you could don't get scared you could create like the tiniest the tiniest of an agenda so that quiet people don't feel awkward just sitting there maybe you play play a game or i don't know so an agenda might help with a smaller group if they're mostly quiet people because silence can be kind of rough on a party silence is not always bad silence is beautiful in certain situations but at a party can be a little you know like let's try to anticipate where the silence might exist as you make your guessings list. Okay. So that's just three things. Purpose, mood, be ball, pump, without the you. But you need the you because you need yourself to throw. You know what I mean. It doesn't matter. It's fine. Okay. So now you're probably thinking like what about food and am I supposed to put up decorations and are E-vite's okay or do I have to send paper invitations and I'm guessing I should play music. Do we have to have games? All that stuff. I realize there are a lot of details we have not covered. but the beauty of pumping your party is that it creates those limits for you, like really beautiful limits.

It gives you a path of knowing which details matter and which details don't. Okay. So like, all right, let's look at a few scenarios just so you can kind of see how this all fits together. But before we do, I just want to tell you too, I have a blog post I wrote a couple of years ago called How to Never Run Out of Food at Your Party. And it's magical. It's the only time math is helpful, but it's literally a formula for how much to make, what foods to choose, all of it.

It is such a great starting point for your party food. And I will definitely link to it in the show notes, which for this episode, the lazy genius collective.com slash lazy slash holiday party. Okay. And there's going to be other resources there too. But that post will definitely be there. Aw, isn't something we need to travel for. It's something waiting for us in everyday life. whether in a city street or a moment with a work of art.

I'm Dr. Keltner, host of the Science of Happiness podcast. Join me for Cities of Aw, a special series on how our public spaces can spark awe, wonder, and enhance the quality of public life. You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. Now let's look at a couple of scenarios. Let's say your purpose for hosting is to catch up with friends, okay? Friends you don't see very often.

And your mood words are conversational, casual, and quiet. That means you landed on, that party sounds lovely, by the way. That means you landed on a dozen people, right, to keep things small but to still feel like a party. Much more than that, and you kind of lose your purpose and you won't be able to accomplish your mood if you invite more than about 12 people. If you want to be able to talk, I think there's some study done. Like if you want to actually be able to talk to everybody in a single group, the biggest your group can be is 12. I think that was the number.

It's like 10 to 12. So if you do want to do that, if you want to talk to everyone at the same time, don't invite more than 12 people or have more than 12 people. Hopefully everyone can come. Maybe some people won't, but you know what I mean. Head your bets. Okay, so you have done your party food map. You read that post that I just mentioned.

You figured out how much food make. But in terms of the party, will everyone mostly be sitting in the same room? Sounds like it. So it might be a good idea then. to serve the food on a coffee table or like a console table in your living room rather than in the kitchen. That way, people don't have to miss out on conversation when they just want to go get more bacon dip, right? It's just right there. Okay, so what else does pumping your party, what else is it set you up for? If you have a small group and you want the mood to be more

conversational, loud music is not in the cards for you. But because a group is smaller and it could feel a little quiet at times, I think that music is always a good idea in any party. But you want to keep it kind of chill, right? So you could make a Spotify playlist or like play a Pandora station or something of like acoustic Christmas carols. You know, like something chill. Keep it chill, but keep it going. Next thing. If you want things casual and conversational, make sure there is a comfortable place for everyone to sit.

You've already decided this won't be a standing around party. You've already decided you want everybody in the living room together having the same conversation, if at all possible. So like grab all the pillows off of the couch and put them in small piles on the floor to make floor sitters more comfortable, especially if you don't have a lot of regular seats. Like we don't have enough actual seats for people. You know, make it cozy, make it casual, make it comfortable. Also, there is science behind this. Quiet conversation requires candlelight. It just does.

Light candles, man. You can turn on lamps, but definitely have kind of more understated lighting. And you can, candles are going to add a lot to the mood. without going overboard. I will still, it'll still feel festive and like a party without you having to use streamers, right? You could even, you know, those little tiny wire twinkle lights,

you could even put those like around a lamp or around a living room bookshelf or something to add just like a little bit of holiday player, you know, little party player. Nothing crazy. And if you want to just catch up with friends, you don't have to have an agenda, right? Just hang out.

You are creating a purposeful space for a conversation but you're thinking ahead, like you're thinking ahead about food and about atmosphere in order to make your friends feel welcomed and excited to linger and catch up with each other, right? Now, of course, you could spontaneously invite these same friends over on a whim without thinking any of this through and it would be totally great. I'm all for that. I just love the added intention of like a quote unquote party because you do take the time to think through details that make your people feel really special.

And I think that's something that's really fun to do, especially during the holidays. Okay, let's look at another scenario. Another pumping party pumped up. Your reason for hosting is to have your house full and lively to give your friends something fun to look forward to that is not a dry office party. Your mood words are lively, warm, and entertaining. This is my personal favorite party to throw. I love to hear like chatter throughout my whole house for people to feel really well. and warm and comfortable and for everyone to laugh at least once at the same thing um that's my weirdo way

of creating a like one tiny thing where everyone's attention is focused the same direction so okay in terms of size right you can go bigger for this kind of party right so um our max for our house is like 40 but we also have a really open floor plan and we have a front porch that's next to a fire pit that we have a deck you know so there are a lot of places for people to go like even though our house our house just a basic ranch. It's like 2,000 square feet. It's not, I mean, it's big compared to the rest of the world, but it's not like a mansion or anything. But we do have a lot of places to sit, and we can fit 40 people comfortably. We can do that pretty well. And so that's kind of our max number when we have this kind of party. Your house might hold more or less. Just make sure that the number fits your

purpose and your mood. Just because you can hold 40 people. Doesn't mean you have to, you know, like that's not a rule. And then food. Okay, so again, that blog post, it covers that. I always have something with bacon, though. Always. And based on that food math, just so you know, the more people you have, the more choices of food you should have, and that's in your formula. I will link also to another post I wrote a while back called Quit Throwing Fancy Bridal

Showers, where I share some of my food philosophy when it comes to entertaining. It works for holiday parties, too. Basically, comfort rains over fancy. That's just how it goes. And I know that you have recipes that you love that you wanted to try. And that party food math post, it allows for that too. So what you can do is start with like one or two recipes that you know you want to make. And I always start with a recipe source rather than a recipe itself, like when I'm searching.

So like, for example, instead of Googling best party food, like I go to my favorite sources for recipes that just don't ever fail me. and they might have like part and then search party food there like look in a recipe index or something so um my the kitchen that's one of mine i will link to these in the show notes by the way um my favorite recipe sources are um the kitchen with no e um i love them um they've never steered me wrong on anything smitten kitchen a lot of you are super familiar with smitten kitchen and then Amanda friedrickson um those three never steer me wrong there are obviously so many others but I can pretty much always find some great inspiration in those three places. I also I also really like Lucinda Scala Quinn. I have her cookbooks. I really like them a lot.

She runs the site Mad Hungry. She used to work for Martha Stewart for a long time. So there's a lot of simplicity in what she does but it's not quite as like fancy as Martha. It's just like good ingredients, just a few of them. Do your thing. So she's another one. I usually use her for like family dinner recipe ideas a bit more but she's very dependable. So she's a good. She's a good place. Oh, I remember another one. Mark Bittman. He is the How to Cook Everything guy. He writes for, I think it's the New York Times. I have two of his giant, like encyclopedic books. I have How to Cook Everything and How to Cook Everything Fast. I will link to those. And I'm pretty sure he has appetizer categories in both those books. I think his books, they don't have photos, by the way.

So if you are inspired visually or you don't really like have a lot of cooking, skills, probably skip him. Because his recipes and like his techniques and stuff, they're actually really simple for the most part, but they kind of translate better if you already have sort of like a working skill set of cooking, like a pretty good foundation. So if that's not you, stick with a kitchen. Always a winner. Again, go to the show notes.

It's all there. And I will describe like who those sources are best for as well. So all that said, let's get back to the party scenario. So we have a lively party for the purposes. being lively and the food is taken care of um a lively party means lively music so like upbeat christmas music no gosh gropin like that's not allowed in this kind of party um and like mixing classic and modern music is totally great as long as the mood is the same for that music so you can think about that when um genre like mixing genres as long as the mood is the same you're totally good

and in that scenario you might want to have at least like one moment where everyone is focused on the same thing just so it feels like everyone's connected and went to the same party um one year we hosted a house concert um of some musicians like touring playing christmas music and that was so fun so like everybody hung out and chatted and got food and all that for like the first half hour hour and then um nick flora and stacey lands who i will link to in the show notes also um they have one of my favorite christmas albums it's this short little EP it's just four songs and so great I love it. They played Christmas music in my living room and it was so fun. You don't also you don't have to hire professionals like if you have a few musicians friends that is a hard phrase to say there's always one right in every single episode there's something I trip over. You can have like a sing-along I know that sounds really corny but it's actually really fun. You can do an ugly sweater contest you can play a Christmas trivia game you can do some sort of like Christmas movie trivia thing like it doesn't have to be changed. It doesn't have to be cheap. You can do cheesy, but it also can be. Like, cheesy, I think fits during Christmas. And with games, yes,

some people hate them with a passion. But the way you solve this is to make teams if you want to have games, but you don't want to get eye rolls from people who come. And you tell them in the beginning, tell them in the invitation. Like, hey, we're playing games, but it's on teams. You don't have to do anything you don't want to do. Yeah, just make teams. That just really helps because introverted people can, like, they can observe and laugh and feel connected without having to be in front of everyone or be in charge or something. And for my lively Christmas party, I will have lights on twinkly and pretty and maybe like a festive setup for the food, like a food table. But that's probably it in terms of like decorations because the Christmas tree kind of does most of the work for you, assuming you

have a tree up. So that's really fun. Okay. So do you see how starting with your reason for hosting and the mood you want affects everything else? We like we just often start with the wrong thing. We first start searching Pinterest for like party ideas. And then and the parties just stay ideas because we can't, we just get so overwhelmed, right? So just do a little bit of thinking and you might discover a secret love for party throwing. I literally put a yearly party in our family budget. Like, it's that important to me. I love it so much. So you get to decide how to do it. You get to decide what matters and how it feels and how much energy you want to put into it. But the beauty of focusing on what matters is that you won't dread the planning because it all

matters, right? It can actually be really fun. So those are some starting points. But check out the show notes. I'll link to that food post and to another post that I wrote that just came out this week, actually, about details like Lazy Genius food, party decorations, kind of like all that good stuff if you do want a little bit of inspiration once you kind of like land on your purpose and your mood and your people. Because we need to save you all that Pinterest searching. Like that's a little bit ridiculous.

So let's kind of curate it a little bit. So you can check all of that out at the Lazy Genius Collective.com slash lazy slash holiday party. okay quick lazy genius tip of the week if you have a blender Christmas to blenders if you have a blender you probably know to put a drop of like dish liquid dish soap inside fill it up like two thirds of the way with water and then run it like blend it and that cleans it if you didn't know that bonus lazy genius tip um but what I usually do after I run the blender and I now have this like hot soapy water not I it gets hot for me because I have a Vitamix and that sucker is like really fast and make soup can blend soup and cook it. It's crazy. But even if you if it doesn't heat up the water,

you still have this like beautiful, frothy soapy water. What I like to do is I actually like clog up the sink and not clog it. Put the stopper in, you know. And I put that soapy water in the sink. And I have like a bonus little sink of soapy water where I can wash a few things that are like laying around. Because here's the thing. You're probably like, okay, kind of great, thanks. But here's the thing. For some reason, running a sink of water, it feels like such a chore, right? Like plug the sink and find the soap. But it feels like super intentional.

And like you're entering into this like horrible contract with your dirty dishes and you've committed and now it's over. What's great though is this water that is soapy in your blender. Like you were going to dump it down the sink anyway. So why not go ahead and put it in the sink and say? it and keep it there and just wash the pan from breakfast or like wash the a couple things that you prepped for dinner or you know whatever it is and if you don't you let it out and you would have let it out anyway so I just think I don't know when I started doing that when I started dumping my soapy blender water and making an actual sink of soapy water it was it was surprisingly exciting

like I just felt like I had solved some mystery so if you're if you make smoothies every day or sometimes or anytime you use your blender clean it with a drop of water and some a drop of water you need more than a drop a drop of dish soap and your water don't overfill it that's always bad but even if you do overfill it like open the blender in the sink in the stopped up sink and it all will catch it even if it overflows so i really am surprised to how excited i am about this blender situation. It's fine. Maybe you feel, maybe you'll feel similarly with your own blender. But there you go. All right. So that is going to do it. Thank you for listening. I hope that you throw a party and you have so much fun. Thank you for telling your friends about the show. I am just really grateful for you.

And don't forget to check out those show notes for all things party, party food, all of it. And remember, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. I'll see you next time. Have you ever felt like you were living just a B or B plus? life, it's so dangerous to live that more dangerous than a B minus or a C plus life, because when you're living a B or B plus life, you don't change it. You think it's good enough. Is it? I'm Susie Welch. I host a podcast called Becoming You. People think, okay, an A plus life is not available to me, but there is a way. We are all in the process of becoming ourselves. Listen to Becoming You wherever you get your podcasts.