Every once in a while, I get a big itch to host a little party – something fun and relaxing and relieving for my friends and me – and this year the itch hit right as Fall set in. I welcomed the bug with wide open arms: “Perfect,” I thought, I’ll do a girlfriendsgiving.” I envisioned a color palette full of natural fall colors, plus pink (pink’s a must). I was inspired by a Thanksgiving tablescape that I saw online that was decorated with real fruit, so I found tiny apples, dainty pears, and cute persimmons at my favorite Frei’s Fruitstand, and I was lucky to get some gorgeous pomegranates from my sister’s own yard. I hosted Thanksgiving for my extended family in 2023 when we finished our house, so I pulled my Thanksgiving bin out for a few sparkly decor items, drew up an invitation, rallied 20 of my girlfriends to come party with me and voila! We had the funnest night.
My dining nook table has seats for ten…
And I set up two more tables outside to seat ten friends more!
I took all but one photo of the actual party, which I regretted the second everyone went home because friends make a party what it is! Luckily I asked Claire to snap a quick shot of my girl, Ariel, and me before more friends came. Ariel and my other girl, Cachet, came over that afternoon to help me and make sure that I had dotted my I’s and crossed my T’s, and surprise surprise (wink), I felt super thankful for those two that day.
I am thankful for all of my friends here — and there are a lot of them! I wanted to invite almost 40 women to this party when I started planning it. I started out with a list of 36 women that I would have loved to have spent time with that night, but I’m just not outfitted for a crowd that size (dare I add a “yet”). I parred down my list to the women that I cross paths with the most and I let it be there. I sound nonchalant about that, but it’s actually so hard for me to par down an invite list. I love parties and people – “the more the merrier,” says my heart! But my head says, “Chill, girl, you can’t do it all.” Social bandwidth is real! Everyone hits their limit and that’s okay. I’m not invited to lots of things that I see or hear that friends do and, yes, that is so okay! Experience has taught me that friendship as an adult women has to be rooted in quality, not quantity. I’ve actually taught my girls that already since our social lives can be so public now. It’s impossible to be included all of the time! And here’s the fact that I think trumps them all: everyone does the best they can. Women try so hard to be strong, happy, fun, organized, smart, selfless — how can we possibly do and be it all for everyone?! We can’t, but we try anyway, ha! Our good hearts always do the best we can.
Thankful for friends!!
