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Guest List Guide: Who Do You Invite To Your Holida...

Guest List Guide: Who Do You Invite To Your Holiday Party?

I’m really not kidding in my bio when I say I have been hosting dinner parties since high school.

On a scale way too grand for a fourteen or fifteen year old, I would spend weeks planning my fete. I’d corral gifts for every friend that was set to attend and spend all day cooking. To me, it was a nice way to give all of my friends their presents in one fell swoop.

Grown-up Holiday Party Guests

Back in those days, I would invite my socially homogeneous group of fifteen or twenty close friends to my holiday party. Or really any party.

But as an adult — or grown-up, if you will — party, homogeneity is exactly what you don’t want. A stand-up, hors d’oeuvres-driven party presupposes mingling. And mingling, according to Mr. Merriam and Mr. Webster, is to bring together different elements without a fundamental loss of identity.

Same group identity? No mingling.

Mix it Up

So now, at my annual holiday party, I bring together people from all different areas of my life.

Thankfully I travel in diverse circles. One year, we had a tango performance followed by an impromptu salsa class from one of Boston’s best and kindest teachers. People traded obscure French lounge music on their laptops in one room while some Asian med students enjoyed their first encounter with mulled wine too much in another.

When you bring together diverse groups of people, interesting things are bound to happen. And you never know what connections will be made.

Compiling the Guest List

For a good cocktail party, you need to reach to the edges of your address book — of Google contacts list, as most people use these days — and invite co-workers, old friends, your favorite barista, your best friends’s boyfriend’s cute buddies, and your ex’s friends that you wish you had kept in better touch with.

If you think that you don’t know people from different groups or different backgrounds, ask your friends to help with the guest list. That’s a surefire way to bring in some new characters.

A variety of backgrounds, experiences, and potential conversation topics will make your party sparkle.


  1. Cheryl

    6 December

    Wow – your parties sound like a lot of fun. We have an annual Christmas party every year – and we do a huge feast – but this year, b/c we just got married – we are keeping it simple. I am calling it a ‘Chip ‘n Dip’ party – I am just going to try and find a few different chips and dip to make. I hope you are enjoying the holidays!

  2. Cheryl

    6 December

    Wow – your parties sound like a lot of fun. We have an annual Christmas party every year – and we do a huge feast – but this year, b/c we just got married – we are keeping it simple. I am calling it a ‘Chip ‘n Dip’ party – I am just going to try and find a few different chips and dip to make. I hope you are enjoying the holidays!

  3. […] time to really hang out with your good friends this holiday season. Not all of them, and not the balanced-for-maximally-interesting-conversation group you would invite to a holiday party. Just your four or five closest […]

  4. […] time to really hang out with your good friends this holiday season. Not all of them, and not the balanced-for-maximally-interesting-conversation group you would invite to a holiday party. Just your four or five closest […]