Planning holiday family gatherings is a long and valued tradition. They are times for families and friends to be together, celebrate good fortune, remember the past, and recall those who are no longer present. While the fantasy leads people to believe these gatherings just naturally occur, the reality is a quality holiday celebration requires planning and organization to provide all members with hospitality and a quality meal.
Decide on a Guest List
The first step in planning a holiday celebration is deciding on a guest list. Family and friends are often on the list to consider. There are several issues to consider when assembling a guest list. The first issue is space. Space is a limiting factor as dinner guests do require a place to eat the food being served. Hosts deal with this issue in several ways. Some choose to expand into a separate venue to avoid deleting guests from the list. Others have creating seating and serving methods to expand the ability to feed more guests.
The second issue for many is budget. Hosting a holiday dinner can get expensive. The more one expands the guest list the more expensive the cost. Some families deal with this by sharing costs and meal preparation. People bring dishes to share for the meal, allowing hosts to keep the guest list larger than the budget would normally allow. When planning the guest list, hosts should invite people as early as possible for holiday meals. People often have multiple obligations for holiday meals. Knowing people are unable to attend can make budgeting and meal planning much easier.
Plan a Menu
Holidays and families have unique holiday menus. While Thanksgiving has traditionally been a meal for turkey, many people have additional side dishes that are requirements for the meal to be complete. In the same way, Easter is often associated with ham, but when speaking with individual families, the additional requested side dishes are often just as important and equally unique.
Consider the type of meal to be cooked and served. Hosts need to decide if this will be a sit down formal meal or a buffet meal. Sit down meals can be a great family tradition when all members can be together at the same time to eat at once. Buffets are a great option when there is a large group of people that will not fit at the table all at once. They are also effective when people will be arriving at different times. Choosing the appropriate style of meal can make for a more peaceful holiday celebration.
Decorations add to the Celebration
Table settings are a tradition for holiday celebrations. Hosts work on finding the right centerpieces and table settings to set the mood for a holiday meal. Setting the table in a festive manner can people in a festive holiday mood. Children can be invited to help decorate by making festive table decorations. DLTK is a great resource for ideas.
The family meal is not the only time to engage the family in coming together. Children and adults can be encouraged to celebrate the holiday with activities. DLTK, Billy4Kids, Activity Village and others have decorations and activities children and adults can participate in over the course of the day. Crafts and games draw the family together and help people to engage in conversations and learn more about each other.
Holidays are a wonderful time for families and friends to come together. Planning provides hosts with the opportunity to account for guests and to provide for their food and entertainment needs. Combining traditional holiday traditions with new food and activities can make for long lasting new traditions and eagerness to continue celebrating.
Christine Ledder - Chris Ledder is a former elementary teacher with experience in accounting. Freelance writing has allowed her to use both career paths in a ...
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