Channeling Julie, Your Inner Cruise Director

You know, like Julie, the cruise director on the Love Boat? You can have a reeeeeally nice boat with fabulous food and a k-razy bartender with an awesome mo and great special guests like Charo, but it’s Julie who introduces everyone, grins her gigantic grin and jump-starts the party. Yahhh! How do you think Doc ever got any action? Julie, yo, settin’ him up. (Remember the one with the gorgeous woman with the veil who was all embarrassed about some facial scar, but Doc fell for her, proving that people could see past the scar to the Special Person She Really Was? For some reason that one made a big impression on me as a youth.)

Anyhow, so your goal is to find your inner Julie and get her workin’ the room at your next party. As confessed in my previous post, this is not my strong suit. I overplan and thus am invariably behind when guests show up. Bad hostess! Instead, be like Julie. Sidle up to guests and mention how one just got back from Jakarta or how both of them are mad Jimmy Cliff fans. Even if one of them doesn’t even know who Jimmy Cliff is! Kidding. Only mention how both of them are Jimmy Cliff fans if both of them really like Jimmy Cliff. Look, the point is, give ‘em something to talk about besides their freakin’ major, right?

Hey, I know how it is. By the time I’m actually having a party, I’m usually pretty wiped from all the planning and still trying to put the finishing touches on everything, so I tend to let guests fend for themselves and make their own fun. But more and more, I’m coming to the conclusion that guests need a lot more to have a dynamite time than your just providing all the trappings for them to do so. Yeah, it’s great if you have amazing canapes and signature cocktails and a custom dance mix, but many guests are still pretty helpless without their cruise director helping them figure out how to really let go and live it up. Even if you’re hosting a small dinner party where everyone knows each other, your guests are taking their cue from you as the leader of the evening. Remember, you are the Model Bon(ne) Vivant(e) here. Are you hiding in the kitchen, slaving away, stressed and ready for Calgon to take you away already? Or are you relaxed, fancy-free and bubbly as Goldie Hawn circa Laugh-In? Let your guests know what kind of evening this is gonna be. Why not dispense with the formalities and jump right into strip poker? Okay, maybe not, but you get the idea.

So this is hereby my official resolution to stop trying to be so perfect and make my party to-dos more manageable so next time I’m already long since ready when the first guest rings the doorbell…or, if for some reason I’m not, to stop whatever I’m doing (adding frosting florets to the cake? touching up my chipped nail polish? looking for my go-go boots?) and get out there and enjoy myself, dammit. Julie would be so proud!

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