How to Throw a Holiday Open House

Elevate your entertaining AND lose the stress this year with a holiday open house! We've partnered with Blue Diamond to share our tips for pulling off the most enjoyable gathering you'll have this holiday season.

Photography Credit: Shannon Sturgis

This post is brought to you in partnership with .
Holiday gatherings can be stressful — there’s no way around it. Even if you love welcoming people into your home, there are lots of moving parts to consider: getting everyone drinks, serving appetizers and snacks, selecting good tunes, corralling kids.
Often the result is a truly great party, but not enough quality time with friends and family. That’s why this year we’re partnering with our friends at to share our tips for throwing a low-stress holiday open house instead of a more traditional party.

Easy Snacks for Grazing

The best part about an open house is that you can set out a big snack board (think favorite cheeses, fruit, crackers and nuts ) and let guests help themselves while you relax and enjoy the party, too! Forget fussy appetizer passing or trying to keep things warm.
Of course, and will be part of our line up this year.
The almonds are great on their own thanks to interesting flavors like Pink Himalayan Sea Salt and Black Truffle. The crackers are great solo as well (hello there, Asiago cheese flavor) but we love pairing them with our favorite soft cheeses and dips.

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falafel

Until recently, if you’d asked me if I ever wanted to make falafel at home, I’d have said “sure, one day” but what I meant was “nah, why bother?” I was certain that falafel was fussy to make and had a long ingredient list. It probably related in some way to a fritter, meaning that it was bound with eggs and flour, and probably had breading on it too, all pesky steps and this is even before you get to the peskiest of all: deep-frying them. I figured that it’s one of these things that there as many recipes for as there are people who make it, thus whatever I came up with would be wrong by default – too firm or too soft, with chickpeas instead of favas or vice-versa — no matter what. But this isn’t the whole truth. The fact is that below 14th Street, there are two locations each of Taim and Mamoun’s every time I even distantly considered whether I needed a homemade falafel recipe in my life, I knew I could get a perfectly executed sandwich in my hands before I even wrote...

spinach and cheese strata

I have spent the last few months unearthing recipes I’ve had bookmarked for an eternity. A whole lot of them, mostly things I have spared you, did not exactly age like fine wine, as they say; fillings ran, vegetables never caramelized, spiced mixed nuts were grimy and cookies were painfully sweet. The rest of them, however, caused me to become consumed with regret when I think of all of the times we could have already consumed mindblowing butterscotch , caviar-esque creamed mushrooms and speedy, rich biscuits but did not know of them yet. This is one of those times. As I mentioned yesterday, I’m all about hosting brunch, but only if I can make everything in advance . When it comes to biscuits , bacon, baked French toast and fruit salads , pulling it off is obvious. But I always get lost on the eggs, and for a whole lot of people, it’s not breakfast if it doesn’t involve eggs. This strata — really, a savory bread pudding — is the missing piece because not only can y...

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