Conversations of a punch bowl diva

Over the years, I have become my family's official party thrower.  I have hosted and planned wedding showers, baby showers, anniversary parties, kid birthday parties, baseball opening week parties, casual barbecues, Halloween costume parties, Christmas dessert spreads, a New Year's Eve family party, Thanksgiving dinner for 19 and Easter lunches. Along the way, I have come up with a few observations and ideas on entertaining.

Dana's Party Tips
My advice for kid birthday parties? Do have beer handy for the parents. Don't make the kids wait longer than an hour before serving the food. Never, never, NEVER allow the birthday child to open his presents in front of the other kids. It is time consuming and leads to bad feelings. Also, you never know if your kid is going to announce that he already has that Bey Blade or that he hates that babyish sweater. You can't risk it. It's totally normal for at least one guest and the birthday child to cry at the birthday party.  Kid parties should last 2 hours maximum.  Give yourself ample time to rest and soothe frazzled nerves after the party is over.

Giving a baby shower? In my opinion, men should not be invited. I know couples showers are popular these days but a baby shower is one of the only times women sit around and try to outdo each other with gross stories of labor and delivery and painful past pregnancies. There's something constraining about having a man in that environment.  Plus, why would a guy want to hear all that?  Also, guys don't like to ooh and aah over each present and it puts a damper on the festivities.

I serve petit fours at all wedding and baby showers.  In my opinion, the ones from Rhodes Bakery are the best.

For all parties besides kid birthday parties, I recommend making a punch.  Punch is festive and looks pretty when served. People are amused by punch bowls and it gives guests something to gather around.  It can be the novelty item of your party and you can make ice rings or ice blocks to go in the punch bowl to coordinate with the theme of the party.  This recipe for pineapple-gin punch is one of my favorites and was a hit at Thanksgiving a few years ago.

What Makes a Bad Party?
Bad conversation -- more important than food or drink,  a good host will find ways of connecting people in conversation. If you don't pay attention to who you're putting on the guest list, you could end up with awkward pauses or bored sighs.

Limited space -- there's nothing worse than feeling like a sardine while you're waiting to get a drink or there's no where to sit down and you're carrying a plate of food, your drink, a napkin, and your purse. Also, if the layout of the party area makes it difficult to circulate or talk to people in another part of the space, you can feel cut off and conversation dies out.

Not enough alcohol -- alcohol is what makes the party world go round so to speak. It gives people something to do (find the drinks, refresh your drink, get you a drink) and something to talk about (these drinks are strong, expensive, unusual, etc.). 

Bad food or no food -- I was once at a Christmas party where the only food offered was cocktail wienies in three different kinds of sauce and M&Ms.   Kid you not.     If you have a more unusual party food pairing than this, please leave a comment and let me know.

My Dream Parties
There are several types of parties I have never been to and would like to be invited to, including the following:

• Indian wedding -- great colors, dancing, multi-day celebrations and the groom rides in on a horse. I have Indian friends. Why haven't I been to one of these yet?

• Any function involving the British royal family. I don't see this one occurring any time soon but a girl can dream.

• A state dinner at the White House. This one could happen, right?

• Any type of Oscars party. This could be attending the actual Academy Awards or an Academy Awards party in L.A., or just an Oscar-themed party thrown by a friend. Maybe I'll even throw this party myself sometime.

Does anyone else out there have a dream party list? What kind of invite would you like to receive?

162 Games

After a brief break from blog life, I have returned to wax poetic on the subject of my favorite sport -- baseball. This post is dedicated to the Atlanta Braves and all the outfielders I have loved before: Claudell Washington, Marquis Grissom, Andruw Jones, Otis Nixon, Jason Heyward and one infielder: Ron Gant.

Since I am a list maker and can't break myself of the habit, I have organized my thoughts into a list I'll call  Why Baseball Is the Best Sport Ever
1. Constancy: baseball has been played in the U.S. for about 150 years and there are 162 games in the regular season. I look forward to baseball opening day every year and the games are a constant presence in my life from April through September every year, day in and day out.
2. Infinite: You play until someone wins. There are no ties in baseball; you just add extra innings until someone scores. I also like that innings have no time limits. It could be a short 7-minute inning with 9 strikes called or the inning could last an hour with everyone in the batting order batting twice. You never know how long a game will take and much depends on the type of pitchers for that game.
3. Errors: that's right -- in baseball there are errors and if you mess up badly enough, that statistic will stay with you into baseball eternity. Balls are dropped, catches are missed, plays are mishandled. I like that an unseen judge, the official scorer, must keep track of what went right and what went wrong. What if there were error statistics kept for those of us in business and law? What if there was an official scorer to tell you that the decision you made with your kid was an official error? At least you would know where you stand. Baseball carries an ideal of perfection. Pitchers pitch "perfect" games and the best fielders don't make many errors.
4. No instant replay: with a very limited exception of reviewing home run calls, Major League Baseball has resisted the siren's song of instant replay. Umpires must make decisions on the spot without pauses to consult tv screens. Do bad calls get made? Sure, but all teams are disadvantaged equally and MLB umpires have a lot of training before they go out on the field. There are no do-overs, even when an umpire causes a pitcher to lose out on a perfect game with a bad call. You just have to apologize (or not) and move on.
5. Language: I like the phrases that are particular to baseball: "safe at home", the "little looper into right", the "pop up", he "flied out" (not "flew" out).
6. Baseball movies: in the offseason, you can watch The Natural, The Rookie, Bull Durham, Sugar, Eight Men Out, Field of Dreams, A League of their Own, and Major League to remind you that baseball is the greatest sport.

So if this list doesn't convince you that baseball is the greatest game ever played, I suggest you watch the video of Sid Bream's slide (the slowest guy in baseball) in the 7th game of the 1992 NLCS and see if that doesn't put a smile on your face, even if you aren't from Atlanta.  Braves win!!!  Braves win!!! Braves win!!!!