For Parents, The Party's Over
In my case it was the former. And it’s pretty safe to say that when you find yourself sitting around a table surrounded by 2- to 5-year-olds dressed as dinosaurs, you’ve fallen about as far down the high-society ladder as you can go. This will probably not change until Ivana Trump is spotted at Le Cirque eating a Hoodsie.
Not that I threw the fanciest soirees before I had kids. When I hosted parties as a young bachelor, their most distinguishing feature was probably the fact that I always served 6-foot sandwiches. I did so on the theory that if you’re not the type of person who would appreciate a 6-foot sandwich, you’re probably not the type of person who’d enjoy one of my parties.
Still, I achieved quite a reputation as a host, particularly for my New Year’s Eve parties. Of particular note were my midnight-hour mix tapes — I’ll never forget the roar of the crowd when "American Pie" segued into "Sweet Caroline." If it’s possible to whip people who’d just eaten a 6-foot sandwich into a frenzy, that did it.
Of course, as I got older my parties got more sophisticated, involving things like white zinfandel and, during my real "social climber" period, Pictionary. Sadly, those unable to draw a convincing stick-figure cow invariably found themselves ostracized from the real movers and shakers. I won’t pretend it didn’t hurt.
After I met my wife, my shindigs started to take on a downright classy air, occasionally even involving food that required utensils. When you serve a meal and you don’t have to worry about it flying off someone’s lap when the Patriots score a touchdown, you know you’ve arrived.
But then, it all changes. Martinis give way to Hi-C. The centerpiece of your buffet becomes a DeMoulas chocolate cake with Elmo on it. Your CD changer gets filled with collections that among them feature five different versions of "Polly Wolly Doodle." None of them by Neil Diamond.
Throwing kids’ parties can be deflating to the socially conscious, but my advice is to rise to the challenge — attack the planning process with every bit of the fervor you would a society ball. Take the Halloween party my wife and I held last month. Martha Stewart herself would have been impressed by the élan with which I affixed a fake witch to our dining room ceiling in a mere two hours’ time, using everyday masking tape and good old-fashioned party ingenuity (a.k.a., swearing).
And while we didn’t have to determine whether to serve the Sevruga or the Beluga caviar, we did have to decide whether to include permanent markers in the pumpkin decorating, for fear that some of the guests might draw on themselves.
It’s tough decisions like these that make or break any good party, and I’m proud to say this one went off without a hitch. Well, except for the wrestling incident between the dog and the kid dressed as Bob the Builder, which in retrospect is probably what kept us out of Dana Bisbee’s column.
No, to re-attain our social position we’ll have to wait until the kids are a bit older and we can go back to holding more elegant affairs. In the meantime, I’m working on my stick-figure cow.