Last night we hosted a neighbourhood party. It was our first opportunity to properly host people in about five years, since we just haven't had enough space until moving into our house.
Weeks ago we printed up invitations I'd designed and then went door-to door through our complex, popping them into mailboxes. (I'm hoping to make it easier next time - I collected contact information from guests and have shared the email list already.)
Margo has already been heavily Martha Stewarting our living room with holiday decorations, so her culinary contributions were no less impressive. We asked guests to bring dishes to share, but Margo came up with quite an attractive spread herself. The collection of sweets had childred goggle-eyed.
Margo also made vegeterian chili and cornbread.
I got to be a bartender again and made some hot spiced wine, chilled a few lagers and ales for guests whose beer tastes are less snobby than mine, and had a few homebrews on display to represent for the boxes of bottles on the floor nearby. I also served wines from the racks just above and later got to shake up a few mixed drinks.
Sarah and a friend chaperoned kids in the basement. They had some craft activities and later watched some Christmas animations and played board games.
It was great for us to finally host many of the neighbours we'd been having occasional chats with and get to know them better. We'll see a lot more of them after last night; a few plans have already been made. We're happy to be able to help grow some community in our shared housing - we've been wanting to do this for a long time.
