Out of Chaos an organizing newsletter
Celebrating the Holidays with Merrinelle
My mother, Merrinelle Sullivan, was a great hostess. In fact, she was probably most alive, most engaged, and most creative when she was planning a party. This is doubtless why I love to entertain so much: It brings back happy memories.
When my mother planned a party, whether it was New Year’s Eve or a picnic at the Soldiers & Sailor’s Monument in Riverside Park, index cards were involved. There was a menu, a grocery list, a strategy. While my friends make fun of me for printing out my menu and sticking it on the fridge, there is a reason I do this. My mother always told the story of a dinner party early in her marriage when she was halfway through dinner and realized that one dish (that she had labored over) was still in the fridge. When a lot is going on, it helps to check your list.
I know some great cooks who are nervous hosts and don’t put their guests at ease and I know some great hosts who serve uninspired food. My mother was a great host: fun in the room, getting the party going; and her food was great. She loved food and she loved to experiment and up her game. As we got older, my sister and I became her prep and pastry cooks, as well as her silver-polishers, table-setters and hors d’oeuvres-servers. We loved it. Smoked-salmon Christmas trees on pumpernickel with onion garland and caper ornaments? We are on it! Radishes with chive-cream cheese wreaths? I’m your gal. Gourmetmagazine in the Eighties was not about simplicity.
Entertaining to me is just a microcosm of all the basic rules of organization: You want to be organized so you can relax and enjoy. You want to check your list so your head doesn’t explode trying to remember everything. You want be realistic and be yourself, because otherwise you won’t have fun.
So make a menu, make a grocery list, make a plan. And if the plan is ordering in, then embrace it. Just don’t forget to have fun. After all, the point of the holidays is not to post pictures of the perfect turkey on Facebook-shocking, I know. The point is to enjoy the company of family and friends, to open our homes and break bread together. That’s how you make the memories-and they are free and don’t take up a bit of space!