For me, hosting for the holidays has typically had me thinking about the family all gathered around the table enjoying a meal together. And my default has been to focus on what that meal should look like. Lately, I’ve been learning to also think about what we’ll do when we’re together (besides just eat) and I often enjoy the conversation during shared activities even more than over a meal.
One way to bring family or friends together is to do your holiday baking together. I know of families or groups of friends who take a Saturday to bake 8 kinds of cookies/holiday treats. With lots of hands, a good plan for who jumps in where, and a big table for mixing and cooling the cookies, you can get it all done. Everyone takes home a bit of each kind without having to end up with a whole batch of every kind - that can be an overwhelming amount of baked goods!! Instead you get a reasonable amount of each and a wider variety than if you did the baking all on your own. And you get to enjoy all the conversation and laughing together that comes with working alongside each other.
Alternatively, building and decorating gingerbread houses is a fun activity for both adults and kids. Buying kits helps to simplify the prep work - though you can also make the house pieces ahead of time from gingerbread or rice krispie squares. The fun part is the decorating once the house is assembled. (Though, to be honest, the building stage is where we get the most laughs.) We like to all sit or stand around the table and make our own gingerbread house and decide at the end which one we think turned out best. We go through LOTS of different kinds of candies and sprinkles and icing and end up with a big mess. But it all cleans up easily and we have a great time together.
At the end of the day, the holidays are a great time to spend time with people who are important to you. Catching up and making memories happens over food and over shared activities. And most of these things happen best around a table. We’d be happy to chat about how you’d like to bring people together and what you need from your table.
Happy Holidays from our family to yours!
