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Planning a Christmas party
By Nedra Wickremesinghe
Getting set for festive entertaining? Thinking of calling your friends over for drinks? Here's a guide to hosting a warm and welcoming Christmas cocktail party.

While a dinner party can be an intimate gathering, it is certainly a more formal affair. A cocktail party on the other hand, is ideal to entertain your friends and associates without much formality. The casualness and the limited duration of such functions appeals to many people as it makes it possible for them to drop by, amidst other busy engagements during this season. Remember, the success of a good cocktail party comes from a colourful guest list, tasty food, a well-stocked bar and five CDs in your disc player .

Welcoming friends and family and giving your home the right ambience are all part and parcel of the Christmas holidays. But as you count down to December 25 the lists of jobs to do, people to see and presents to buy can distract you from the fun and festivities. Careful planning, some clever shortcuts and a few traditional tricks will see you through the season.

Whom to invite
You can send written invitations, but if you have organized a last minute soiree, invitations by fax, e-mail and voice-mail to friends are also acceptable as the younger set is becoming more and more relaxed to the extent that they keep inviting people up to the last minute. But of course, corporate bosses still adhere to the old conventions whether they entertain at home or outside.

The number of guests to invite depends on the space in your home. Thirty to forty guests seems a good number. With just a few guests here and there in a large room, you can't expect the party to get going. And the best gatherings have a varied group of guests of all ages and from different walks of life. It is all right if some of your guests don't know each other. As long as you invite a diverse, interesting group they will have plenty to talk about, especially after a few drinks.

You know your party's got going when the noise rises from seemingly a whisper to something like a subdued roar. At this stage the hostess can forget about making any more introductions and start doing her rounds.

Setting up the party
The best cocktail parties are organized around self-service stations, and overflow with great-looking food and drinks. Organize self-service food and drink stations and that way you can get the guests to participate in the party, forming little clusters everywhere as the food and drinks are scattered. Try not to have buffet tables laden with food, as this may create a queue and the guests may tend to gather near the table and restrict the flow of movement. Instead offer a wide variety of food from cold canapés to crudités with dips, to carvery, sizzlers, savoury, fruit and desserts.

Special touches
What takes a party beyond the ordinary are the small simple details of decor and presentation. This is the time of year to have your home aglow, warm and welcoming. Fairy lights and candles be it in clusters, votives or in stands add instant glamour. Place candles on buffet tables, side tables, and in the centre of the dining table and the coffee table. Remember to colour co-ordinate table settings with decorations. Wreaths too can be matched to the table centre-piece.

Playing the host
If you organize yourself well in advance with plenty of self-service stations - you are free to enjoy your own party. You can do all the introductions and move on. You can be a social butterfly and flit from guest to guest and have time to talk to each and every one. This way you can appear to look less tired as you don't have to run around pouring drinks.

The other alternative is to hire bartenders and stewards. Professional help like this makes it easier for the host as they keep an eye on guests' drinks and take charge of making and serving the drinks. They will also carry the trays of food around, will help with the washing up and replacing of glasses, clearing the plates and soiled napkins and generally look after the needs of the hosts. If you can afford it, this is the best form of help you can have for a cocktail party.

Play great music
They say "if music is the poetry of the party then food is the prose".
Select a mixture of choral, instrumental and arias for festive music. Lounge music such as "African Lounge - composed by Levantis" is also becoming very popular and fast replacing the loud bistro and pub soundtracks.
Next week: More party hints

Walk into a gallery of gifts
A new boutique in town. So what's news about the latest gallery-style boutique opened without much fanfare on Thursday, November 28 just in time for the season?
Elephant Walk, located in a beautiful house down Ward Place somehow seems different - not only are more than 90% of the bric-a-brac displayed for sale locally crafted and coming from different parts of the country, there is a certain finish to the items that is hard to explain.

Even the bathroom has been put to good use to show off simple but useful things such as "soap on a rope". Much thought has also gone into what the people need, for one can find a simple joss-stick holder coming in different shapes and sizes.

Among the usual range of items from bed linen to cushions, madati to wooden bowls, candles in the shape of temple flowers to book-ends with elephant heads, come the touches of the exotic - the red hot dried chillie picture frame and the Christmas wreath for the front-door, this season.

A lovely gift could be the perfumed oil-burner made of humble clay and the variety of oils to go with it covering a range of fragrances.

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