New Year’s Party.

How is it already 5 days into the New Year? I feel like I was in a mad sprint at the end of the year with work, holidays, and getting tons of projects done for our annual New Year’s Eve party. This was the first time hosting it out at our house, so we made New Year’s Eve an official housewarming party since many of our friends hadn’t seen our new place yet (and plus, it guilted them to drive out to the ‘burbs for the night, #realtalk). It was a totally different experience throwing this party than our past 5 years of apartment hosting. For starters, it takes a lot more time to clean and prep a whole house than it did an apartment; we also had quite a few guests sleepover so we had lots to do to fix up guest bedrooms and freshen bedding. On top of all of that, I didn’t have my party flow down — you know: the spot you always put the bar, the place you always set out the food — all of that was trial and error this time around. Oh and one more thing: we had construction going on in our kitchen and wet paint in our dining room up until about 20 hours before the party started — can you hear my panicked laugh?!

Well, here’s how it all got done: I hung up silver mylar curtains and giant balloons over the unfinished walls, managed to clean the house up thanks to my amazing hard-working husband (seriously, he vacuumed for about 6 hours), and we got everything set up right under the wire with the help of best friends showing up early to help assemble cheese plates and pop champagne (the key to success of any party is having a bestie show up 30 minutes before to takeover prep while you pull the curlers out of your hair and flip on some mascara). After all of the swirls of preparation were done, everyone arrived and enjoyed themselves (I took notes on party-flow for future fetes!), we counted down to midnight, a good friend got engaged (woo-hoo!), and everyone found a place a crash — an overall soiree success — and my favorite way to start the new year every year!