Etiquette Today: Holiday Invitations
It might feel too early, but thinking about and issuing your holiday invitations now will get you lined up well and on people's calendars before they fill up.
Holiday Invitations
Mid-October is the time of the year to start issuing your holiday invitations if you haven’t already. If you want to and are planning to host your friends and families (or even co-workers) for a holiday celebration, whether it’s for a meal, a day, or longer, now is the time to think about what kind of celebration you want and can throw and who you’d like to invite. It’s also the time to get those invitations out to your guests. Don’t forget there are lots of “satellite” gatherings - the cousins hanging out, the leftovers party, the friends from high school meet-up, and more that can also be options for hosting outside of a “main event” celebration.
As The Host
As the host there are a number of things to consider before you issue your invitation so that you’ll know either what to communicate to guests or how you plan to host them. Always a good exercise - while impromptu parties can be excellent and a seasoned host can make one seem like it had been planned for weeks in advance, when it comes to holiday celebrations the vast majority of us benefit from a lot of planning, and our guests benefit from us being well prepared as.
1. Space
You’ll want to consider your space or the spaces available to you if you choose to rent or use space outside your home. How many people can you comfortably fit in the party space? If you’re planning on using an outdoor space, do you have coverage if the weather doesn’t cooperate? A 20-person party utilizing indoor and outdoor spaces will be overcrowded if rain comes and everyone heads for the indoor space that can really only fit 10 comfortably.
Seating and table space are important to consider too, especially for holiday celebrations that include a large meal. It’s okay if you don’t have a set large enough to host all your guests to get creative. It was standard practice at Post family Christmases held at Libby and Bill Post’s (Mud and Poppy’s) house for the service to be buffet and the seating to be first come first serve around the table and for those that wanted (or waited) to end up in chairs around the living room with plates on fold out TV trays or laps. (Note, that the hosts didn’t choose to use place cards and put some people at the table and leave others to fend for themselves with the TV trays, instead they let us guests choose where we’d be comfortable.)
Mental space isn’t one we usually stop to think about when it comes to hosting, but it’s often something that creeps in once the work begins. Thinking ahead of time, if you really have the space in your head to handle planning, executing, and dealing with all the minor and major hiccups that occur around holiday celebrations. This isn’t meant to be a buzz kill. Instead a reality check. Is this really the year for you to host and host well? It’s a great question to consider before the invitations go out.
2. Type of Celebration
Before you send out invitations truly having a clear vision of the celebration you want to host is important. Is this a cocktail party-type gathering? A casual cousins’ hang for football at the end of a long weekend with the whole family? A large come-one-come-all gathering? Or is it more of a formal dinner party? Will it last all day and into the evening or will the goal to be gather for a specific meal? Or are you inviting your guests up for a full-blown holiday extravaganza with schedules and plans over the course of days or maybe even weeks?
Narrow your vision so that you know what to include in your invitation. If you’re planning on a potluck, that’s important for guests to know - as will be coordinating dishes that guests will bring. If your afternoon get-together needs to be finished by 5:30 so that you can make dinner and the show your family is going to that night, then you’re going to be planning an open house party with start and end times “Football at my house Sunday, 1 pm game, come 12p-4:30p and wear your jersey!”
Once you have a good idea of what type of party you want to host, you’ll be able to determine the formality of the invitation as well. The above could be a simple text invitation to guests. But for a formal holiday party or meal, you may want a more formalized invitation. Because holiday invitations are often between family members or with very close friends, you may not go with a full-blown written invitation (although wow it could really be fun!) But instead, in your phone call with your sister, you can certainly convey that you’d like to invite them to a formal meal at your house for the holiday. With this type of intimate relationship you can often even get away with saying something like, “I’m really wanting to do a formal Thanksgiving this year, and I’m hoping everyone will come dressed up a bit for the meal.”
3. Schedule & Budget
These two might seem a bit obvious and for many people will be the first things they consider, you’ll want to double-check your schedule and your budget. For schedule, you might even check in with other family members. Ensuring that you not only have the day you’d like to host a specific event available, but making sure you have time leading up to it, to handle all the hosting details is most definitely a key to ensuring you have enough time to prepare for the party. For budget, it’s a really great habit to get into as a host to plan out a party well in advance and even check in on the budget before you even send out invitations. The worst feeling is to have over-planned and under-budgeted. We can put a lot of pressure on ourselves as hosts and it’s easy to let it build. It’s also easy for things to come up between invitations and party dates that can impact our budgets - things that are entirely out of our control. Planning something you can really count on being able to provide will give you confidence and peace of mind. Remember, your goal as a host is to make people feel comfortable. Impressing with expensive ingredients or decorations is not a rule of etiquette by any means.
With these things in mind, you’ll have a really good handle on the type of gathering you want to host this holiday and how you’re going to be able to best accommodate your guests. Do yourself a favor and let your planning sit in your mind for a day or two just to see if anything pops up. A reminder about your schedule, or something that you know might impact your budget or guest list. And once you’ve given it a breath, now, you’re ready to issue your invitations!
PERSONALIZATIONS ARE ALMOST OVER! Emily Post’s Etiquette - The Centennial Edition, is available with the option to personalize through the end of October. Get your holiday gift shopping done early by purchasing a signed and personalized copy of the book for your friends and family! Order your copy(ies) today from Bridgeside Books - our local, woman-owned business partner for all our signed books!
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Thank you for spending some of your day with us. We hope you’re getting excited about the approaching holidays. Speaking of holidays, Halloween is coming, any fun costume ideas out there? We’re always hopeful that one day someone will go as The Ghost of Emily Post :) Leave your thoughts in the comments, if you can’t post here, the Monday post has a comment thread open to all! Keep an eye out for the Saturday Sip, it’s coming up next!
Until then,
Lizzie and Dan
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