Looking back on all the gatherings I hosted in 2024, there were concrete steps I took for each one that enabled me to root in my vision and blend it with the people and place I’m connecting with through the gathering. That heartfelt connection created opportunities to build and deepen community that lasted beyond the gathering, like a portal that transforms your individual spark into a shared experience. Best of all, parties are fun — though fun just happens or it doesn’t and isn’t something you can plan for or control.
Whether I’m hosting birthdays, family reunions, friend getaways, neighbor get-togethers, or seasonal celebrations, I take these steps: 1) Start with your intention; 2) Play with collective resources; and 3) Ask your guests for participation.
In any of the steps, if you feel like you’re putting in too much effort, pause and ask yourself why. Are you to trying to impress your guests? To meet a standard you hold yourself to? Taking on too much yourself when others could help? Doing something in a more complex way when something simpler would work? This reflection not only gives you the opportunity to grow in this process, it also offers you the opportunity to find more ease, and that ease will transfer to the feeling of the gathering.
Below I explain the steps in more detail with examples, tools, and templates you can adapt to your own gatherings. If you have templates or ideas you want to share, please add them to the comments — I’d love to hear them and I’m sure others would too. 💞
1. Start with your intention
For my birthday last January, I asked each of my local lady friends to bring a dream they’d be willing to share: “What are you hungry for in 2024?” Lingering at the table after brunch my husband made, we each shared our dreams. My intention was to hold space for each of us to reflect on what we were calling into our lives, and for us to listen to each other, and that’s exactly what happened. What made it work was clearly communicating my intention in the invitation so that guests could prepare, having activities like arts & crafts and puzzles that put guests at ease, and personally introducing each guest and how I knew them so that they would feel more comfortable being vulnerable with each other in that circle of trust. The idea caught on and inspired my friend Kelley to adapt it to her own birthday lady-gathering in Las Vegas a few weeks later.
2. Play with collective resources
When I’m planning a gathering, I think not only about what resources I have (e.g., my house, or ingredients I could cook), but also the collective resources available among the group and in the place where we are gathering. For example, my friend Sandra and I have hosted several “mini-retreats” in our neighborhood for friends that are visiting. We might have lunch and hang out at my house surrounded by flowers and stones Sandra brought, go for a walk in our local woods or along the river (public parks we both feel connected to), and take a sauna and lie in hammocks in Sandra’s backyard.
I had several instances where the venue where a gathering took place came from a community offering. For example, for my teenage son’s February break, I planned a reunion with his California friends and their moms (who are also my dear friends), and our friend Karen offered her partner’s house in Tahoe. It was completely free for us, which made the trip really affordable and really fun to all stay together.
In another example, I was planning a birthday party for my husband at a restaurant in New York that ended up not being able to accommodate our group, and our friend Alex agreed to let us host in his apartment, which ended up being a much more relaxed setting. He and his partner Ryan love parties; “big fun no work” became our mantra since they had the fun of having the party without organizing anything.
3. Ask your guests for participation
Asking your guests to play a meaningful role in the gathering enhances the connection everyone feels. The most formal arrangement I have for this is an actual committee for planning our annual neighborhood block party: I designed the invitation and set up Google Docs for us to organize everything; Mary Beth had the invitations printed; KC delivered them; and Tim arranged for tents and supplies. Everyone attending was asked to bring something for the potluck.
Participation could be as simple as bringing a dish or a drink, or it could be something more sentimental. For example, in May, I hosted a gathering of the women in my mother’s family, which was a big deal for me since my mother died when I was four and I didn’t have close relationships with many of my relatives. I asked them to bring “a memory or a blessing” to share. We recorded them on an analog rotary phone my husband engineered into a recording device (initially for a community storytelling project for our local farmers’ market), and I shared the recordings with the group after, including women who weren’t able to be there in person. I asked my son to take photographs so that I could be completely present. He did, which not only yielded beautiful photographs, but also included him in a role he felt comfortable playing.
Tools and templates
Invitations: Canva for design; email or text/WhatsApp for sending (in the case of the block party, we also print flyers and deliver door to door). Templates: Block party; family reunion
RSVPs: I use Google Sheets for tracking contact info, RSVPs, and what people are bringing (you could also set up a shared Sheet for a potluck if you want people to see what others are bringing, as my friend Kelley did for her recent Friendsgiving party).
More complex organizing: I use Google Drive and Google Docs if I’m working with a group of people and we’re tracking who is doing what. Template: Block party Google Drive including our master planning doc, budget, invitations, Google Form for RSVPs
Sharing photos: I typically use iCloud (Apple Photos Shared Album that everyone can upload to) but if you have a group of Android and iPhone users, Google Photos may be easier for everyone to access. Or I just include a few highlights in a text/WhatsApp thread or email after the party.
Sharing audio: SoundCloud and Audiomack are both free, web-based software you can use to upload audio and share private links. Neither are perfect; SoundCloud pushes you to download its app and Audiomack has tons of ads, but they both have the basic functionality for sharing private audio. Google Drive also works but is clunkier to listen to, and you can also email an audio file as an attachment but generally they are large files and may be too large to send or receive. Example: I Feel The Love, a track my husband produced with recordings of our friends’ voices from his most recent birthday party at a hip hop recording studio in Midtown.
Wishing you all glorious gatherings in 2025 🥂
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