Preparing Your Home For Holiday Entertaining
As the holiday entertaining season rapidly approaches, we often turn our attention to not only holiday decorating but making some changes in our homes in order to do some entertaining. Some small changes can be made to your existing floor plan to allow for a better experience. After many years of entertaining both large and small groups, I have found a series of slight furniture plan changes that you can make in your home for the holiday season that might assist you and have a good flow for holiday entertaining.
1.
Having a well-thought-out floor plan before putting up your decorations will help you set up your home for holiday entertaining. Make sure your traffic patterns are clear and think out how you’re going to entertain. Planning this way will allow you to put your Christmas tree or other holiday decorations where it can be seen and enjoyed and out of the way of traffic patterns. This also keeps those cherished holiday decorations safe as they won’t be easily knocked down or broken.
2.
Decide what type of entertaining you’ll be doing this year. Will you be doing a large party and serving appetizers strictly, or will you be hosting a sit-down dinner for a small group? Knowing this in advance allows you to make slight changes in your furniture arrangement and easy access for serving and mingling.
If you know that your holiday party will be served buffet style and you have a kitchen island where you will serve, you might want to think about where people are going to move once they are served. What rooms are they likely to filter into and have a seat? And think about the holiday decorations in those rooms, where you might place them, and where or add extra seating or tables.
3.
Are there furniture pieces that can be removed for the season? I often go through spaces and remove a piece or two before the holiday season to make space for entertaining and decorations. Then, you can bring those pieces back in after the holiday season, when the decorations come down and the house starts to return to normal.
4.
Add supplementary pieces of furniture if needed. Think about the comfort of your guess. Add small seating areas if you have a space. Or you can move existing furniture around into a new fit configuration to allow traffic flow and conversation. For example, if you are serving buffet-style from your dining table, you could move your dining chairs into two groups and place them in different parts of the room or adjacent rooms. This will give you much-needed space for traffic flow around the dining table and create small areas for guests to enjoy the holiday treats and have a conversation with the other holiday guests.
5.
Decide what type of entertaining suits the size of your home and the floor plan; this is helpful. Look at your space and really think about how many guests you can entertain in your home. Thinking this out beforehand will help avoid the added frustration of fitting too many people into a small space.
6.
If you’re hosting a sit-down meal for the holidays, be sure to have enough table space and chairs for everyone. Even if this means creating small dining areas and bringing in some supplementary tables and chairs, thinking this through beforehand will allow you to plan out the best arrangement for your home and help guests feel welcomed.
Until next time,
Gia
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