Have a Cozy Weekend.

Dinner parties are my absolute most favorite thing- I host at least one a month, more often during holiday season and during the summer, since we have a huge roof deck (which has been a godsend during Covid). I love to cook and host and gather friends together- it is truly my love language (I’m an Enneagram 2). Styling the table, making sure the lighting is just right, putting the fancy candle in the bathroom, casually arranging flowers, etc…It just feels SO fun to do and our friends love it. Nothing brings me greater joy than when someone tells me how comfortable they feel in my home. I like to mix a high/low and keep it easy while also trying new recipes, like…buy fresh pasta, but make the 5 hour bolognese. Our loft is designed to entertain and I will take full advantage of that as long as my friends will keep coming over!

I lived in a small town for 12 years and our primary social activity was dinner parties, often two or three times a week. Having them become part of our community routine — as we were walking to dinner at a friend’s house, we would frequently encounter other friends headed to dinner at yet another friend’s house — so they didn’t feel onerous. Still had moments of stress, for sure, but the routine normalized it. And we had no other dining options that wouldn’t require a substantial drive! Now, four and a half years after moving away, I miss it intensely.

I’m nearly 40 and love my social life, but have never once been invited to, nor hosted, a dinner party! You’re not alone!

Having one this weekend!!

Sage I’ve also never been and I’ve lived in a big city (Chicago) for 14 years! I also would love to go to one — I guess I should start hosting at some point, though I hate cleaning my house, haha

Thank you all :) Just calling it “dinner at someone’s house” helps so much, haha. That we can do AND … have done! I was very much envisioning formal place settings and such.

Hi Amber – your comment made me think about how the lives of adults with no kids often don’t get considered/seen in articles by people with kids – and so why not vice versa? It sometimes makes me sad when I describe what I’m planning for the weekend and friends with kids will say “lucky you! couldn’t do that if you had kids!” As though I’ve somehow snuck out of a responsibility or am cheating at life by not having had children.

And? Not everything needs to be written from the perspective of parents. As someone who suffered infertility for years, it’s amazing how pervasive the societal expectation that you should have kids is. The reality is that some don’t by choice and some cant. I love that this article is unabashedly written without the caveat that the author likely doesn’t have children. That fact is completely unnecessary to the topic.

Hi Amber – you’re all good! We are all ‘going through it’ indeed at the moment! I can’t speak for the other commenters, but you certainly didn’t offend me – it just drew attention for me that I so often read ‘lifestyle articles’ that assume that having children is a universal experience and I didn’t really notice that this one (rarely!) didn’t.

Mollie, that sounds absolutely exhausting, tbh

This clip was hilarious!!! Trevor Noah is so funny. Thank you for posting the link!

This advice always works with dog interactions. Let them sniff, jump around and play but don’t have it go on too long or things may take a turn for the worse (says a non parent dog owner :)

@Megan Cahn how in the world did you train them to do these 4 things?? Practice at home? Bribery? Witchcraft?

Mollie, ha! It was over a decade ago but I think we went over it at home before going to a friends house, then maybe the first few times I had to walk them through it. But we did it EVERY time we saw people so it became a total habit in no time. I just quizzed my now-teenagers and they have no memory of this! But they do still say “Thanks for having me” without thinking about it…

Good lord, the comments generated from that Motherhood series post were centered around the gigantic elephant in the room-the long standing conflict with Palestine. Readers here are far too educated to be labeled simply anti-Semetic and that’s a low blow. Anyone with compassion can feel that the human beings (especially children) exist on both sides of the war.

*sending, whoops!

That sounds so challenging, A.L. I’m Jewish and work at a public elementary school and worry about our safety during lockdowns or shelter in place situations, but I cannot imagine how difficult it would be to carry that burden and fear every single day. I’m keeping you and your community in my thoughts.

That breaks my heart, A.L. I’m so sorry to hear about this. You, your family and those of your faith deserve so much better. Your place of worship is a sacred place and should be safe. I am so, so sorry.

I am with you, A.L. My kids go to a Jewish school in a very Jewish neighborhood in NYC. They already have a ton of security, but last year they had to have police cars outside with their sirens flashing for six weeks, as did all our houses of worship, because a man would go out and throw bricks through the windows of our synagogues at night. Our shul just installed traffic barriers on the curb nearest the entrance so a car can’t drive up and ram into it––pretty useful, I guess, but incredibly depressing. I haven’t worshipped in a facility that didn’t have armed security in six years (and not because I choose to find a shul with security––they just all need it at this point). I wasn’t raised Jewish, so I feel like I’m uniquely positioned to say that the difference between the sense of security one feels in the world as a non-Jew and a Jew is *staggering.*

I’m in the U.K. and the difference between the security of Jews and non Jews is very clear in my neighbourhood. My synagogue permanently has ar least one security guard, 2 perimeter fences that are 8 feet high, a special system of gates that can be only opened from the inside or by a remote, CCTV cameras and who knows what else. On high holidays the metropolitan police provide extra security. For the church around the corner – they have a stone wall a toddler could jump over. That’s it. Last year a convoy came through our neighbourhood with loud speakers shouting “f*ck the Jews, r*pe their daughters” which my children saw (fortunately when they were having a break from the loudspeaker). The constant vigilance and anxiety is exhausting.