2 months ago
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For the first time ever, I will be hosting Christmas lunch at my house for my extended family. This challenge has me thinking about what it means to be a good host. I confess this is not one of my special skills. When this lunch was first proposed, my husband said: “Everyone will have to bring a plate.” He meant it literally. There’s three of us and about as many of everything in the house.
I never buy glasses because I’m always breaking them, and not in an excitable “Opa!” way; I’m just clumsy. I know where knives and forks go, but in our house we are strictly plates-on-knees in front of the TV. Our dining table has become the cat and collage station. We don’t have napkins, a butter tray, cake tiers, toast racks. Do we need them? Consider this the start of a list.
Long ago, when I was in a mothers’ group, we rotated our homes for the monthly meet-up. This went on for the first year of our babies’ lives. I found it hard work, but worried that it was necessary. We were renting in the fat lands. Each hostess’s house seemed grander than the last. When my time came around, I felt sick. My friend S, no slouch in the most-host realm, said, “Oh, just sweep the floors and buy some flowers and a fancy tart,” and she was absolutely right – my group was far too well-behaved to pass comment on my mismatched crockery.
I have long told myself I don’t have status anxiety, but there is, somewhere in my psyche, a want to be admired. It’s like a tick or a tic – I can dismiss it; it’s quieter these days, but in early parenting years, when I felt closer to Catweazle than Nigella, it was always making itself known.
A couple of years later, we were living in the country. Hospitality runs wild in such places – just look at the CWA. I had a neighbour who held the kind of parties that achieved mythic status. Every year, people would arrive in their finery (and novelty earrings) to attend her Christmas carols. She played the piano in her front room with the zeal of Mrs Mills and the singing travelled all over the valley. She would have 12 kids over for a sleepover, no stress, and make the sausage rolls from scratch.
A friend said: “That’s the kind of mum I’ll be, and that’s the kind of house I’ll have.” And she is, and she does. Part of me wanted that too (maybe?) but it wasn’t going to happen. All weird families are weird in their own ways. Perhaps in small towns, more than anywhere, there are unspoken rules around what it means to host. Reciprocity is key, but it just isn’t possible for everyone. After a while, it seemed safer to opt out.
But now, here I am, ready to host, freaking out, seeking advice. I start my research with a literature review. Epic gatherings and how to throw them. My Christmas lunch won’t be a Gatsby affair (no pool = no corpse), and while I will most certainly buy the flowers myself, I don’t really want to emulate Mrs Dalloway, who “was always giving parties to cover the silence”.
I find my fictional host role model in Tove Jansson’s Finn Family Moomintroll. Jansson’s UK publisher, Natania Jansz, spoke about the world of the Moomins as idealised, “the world as Tove would have liked it to be … She started writing those books in wartime and in the appalling austerity after wartime and what you needed to get by was that wishful dream...”
Moomins creator Tove Jansson with a sculpture of one of her creations.Credit: Sjöberg Bildbyrå/ullstein bild via Getty Images
One of the reasons the series endures, aside from cuteness and unbounded merch, is because it presents a radical form of homemaking that absolutely suits this century. The Moominhouse is a place where “everyone does what they want and no one worries too much about tomorrow”. It’s fluid, inclusive and adaptable. All creatures can find a place there, even the co-dependent Thingumy and Bob, who speak their own language, even the misanthropic Muskrat. Rooms become an extension of their occupants: Moominpapa’s bedroom, known as the gunwale, is open to the elements, honouring his seafaring past. “It’s all about fulfilling his dreams,” Jansson wrote.
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At the end of the first book, Moominmamma throws a party as a reward for the return of her missing handbag. She prepares a feast of fruit, sandwiches, corn, berries and nuts. Everyone pitches in, rolling out trolleys of pancakes and barrels of red punch, testing the fireworks, hanging lanterns and tuning the wireless for American dance music.
Things are quiet at first, but soon the party comes to life: “The whole garden – in fact the whole valley – was full of small lighted tables sparkling with fireflies and glow-worms, and the lanterns in the trees swung to and fro like big shining fruit in the evening breeze.” In the accompanying image in the book it is all there: lights, stars, lanterns, love, all manner of living things. “Oh! It was wonderful!”
Beyond the books, I get ethnographic. I go local, asking my mum and my most-host friends to send me their top tips. This is a sample of what comes back: “Let other people bring things – people want to help – but be specific or you’ll end up with 15 tonnes of taramasalata.” “Play music; silence is awkward. Vince Guaraldi’s A Charlie Brown Christmas or Phil Spector’s Christmas album, or Elvis – all good.”
“Prepare uncomplicated fare that is easy to dish up (veggie roasts, simple salads) so you can relax on the day and delegate to loafers and shirkers.” “Don’t try too hard! There’s nothing worse than a host with a flop sweat.” “Make a work plan for the day – remember to check it, at least before the first course!”
Truman Capote arrives at his legendary Black and White Ball with guest of honour Katharine Graham.Credit: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
But it’s not just about the food, it’s also about aesthetics. I go online to source ideas. I study photos from Truman Capote’s famous Black and White Ball. Gloria Steinem called it “the greatest party in recorded history”, but Truman said it was “just a party for the people I like”. There were 540 attendees. If anyone had a bum night, they didn’t write about it.
Meanwhile, the Slim Aarons photograph, Christmas Swim, is doing the rounds. It shows Aarons’ wife, Rita, relaxing in a swimming pool beside an elaborately adorned Christmas tree. In the background is the MCM house, the Hollywood sign and three children at play. The tree is in the pool, spilling shiny baubles on the surface of the water. Rita, on a lilo, reaches for one.
All was not as it seemed in Slim Aarons’ Christmas Swim.Credit: Getty Images
It all looks perfect but in 2023 Rita’s daughter, Mary, busted the myth: “It was a hired house and hired kids, and my mom’s big recollections were that it was a really cold, really dirty pool and that because they wanted everything to line up just right (and obviously it was her husband taking the picture), he made her stay in there a really long time …”
For all my research, my favourite piece of advice is something I can’t use. The philosopher Immanuel Kant said guests should be carefully selected, preferably using the four humours as a guide: “The best dinner companions are those with sanguine or phlegmatic temperaments: they tend to be jovial and easygoing, respectively. Choleric diners will be polite guests, but don’t invite two of them, as they are likely to argue. Try not to invite melancholic guests if you can help it.”
Tricky: one can’t choose one’s family. My DNA is for sure sprinkled with melancholy, but I can work with Kant’s other recommendation that all comers employ the “code of secrecy”. So you can wish me well, you can even offer me some tips of your own – just know that what happens at Christmas lunch stays there.
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