The Art of Guesting During Festive Season
How to thoughtfully decide what to attend
For many, the pandemic has both prevented us from doing things we loved and it temporarily removed social obligation. You didn’t have to go to that big family Passover or Christmas or fill-in-the-blank. Now, as many folks are gathering again, it can be easy to slip back into going through the social motions. , As we enter end-of-year season with work parties and New Years fêtes and gift exchanges, it can be tempting to say yes to everything without much thought. But just like a good host thinks about the why behind their gathering,an artful guest thinks deeply about what they actually want to attend.
And as we enter the rest of the holiday season, to help you navigate it all, I want to invite you to practice what I call intentional guesting. What is Intentional Guesting, you ask? It’s the act of choosing whether, why and how one attends a gathering.
Step 1: Develop a gathering discernment muscle.
An invitation comes in. Pause and notice how you feel about it. Excitement? Dread? Luke warm? Blah? Thrilled? Mixed? Is your stomach clenching or your mouth watering? Are you rolling your eyes?
Don’t respond to the invitation yet, just pay attention: How am I feeling about this thing? And why?
Underneath every invitation lies a deeper dialogue with yourself around core questions: How do I actually want to spend my time? And with whom?
As you receive invitations over the next few weeks — whether from colleagues or neighbors or friends or family — I invite you to ask:
What do I actually want to attend?
Who do I want to spend time with (or be in community with)?
What am I hoping to mark and with whom?
This isn’t to say we shouldn't have obligations in our lives. But thinking more consciously about the gatherings one attends becomes a proxy for considering how you want to spend your time (and life).
Step 2: Consider your gathering diet.
Physicians talk about nutritional diets. In the digital age, we have information diets. I want to propose a different kind of diet: a gathering diet. Your gathering diet is composed of the mix of gatherings (and types of gatherings) you choose to attend and not attend over a specific and bounded period of time. You choose the amount, rhythm, and frequency of your gathering practice, whether hosting or guesting. You already have in mind, say the number of gatherings you’re up for attending a week, and you weigh each invitation through that larger framework. As you weigh your RSVP’s, consider these questions to choose what you want on your social plate:
What are your priorities right now, and how might each potential gathering fulfill or distract from them?
At this moment in your life, how many gatherings can you meaningfully attend per week or month? And what does “meaningfully attend” mean for you?
If you are in a partnership or family, how many gatherings (and what kinds) can your family system handle?
Even if you don’t want to attend a gathering, do you anyway to honor your larger relationship with the host?
Do you crave a gathering that doesn’t exist? Might you host it?
We are better guests when we feel like we are choosing how we spend our time. Think/feel through whether you want to attend a specific gathering, make a decision, and then RSVP accordingly.
Step 3: Practice radical RSVPing: A Decisive Yes or A Connected No
When it comes to invitations, don’t be a maybe. Unless the host literally says, “no need to RSVP, come by if the spirit moves!” ambivalence doesn’t serve anyone. Ambivalence takes energy. It keeps the question open in your own head. It also puts unnecessary intellectual holding space on the host. By inviting you to a gathering, the host is throwing you a ball. You're catching it. And by RSVP’ing either yes or no, you're throwing the ball back.
(Note: It is worse to say a “yes” and then flake at the last minute than to say no cleanly and early on. Paying attention to your gathering diet will also help with not overcommitting.)
If you’ve decided that a specific gathering makes your bingo card, I invite you to practice a decisive YES. The decisive YES builds energy for the gathering well before anyone enters the room. Think: “Yes, I'd love to come!” Or: “I'm in — let me know how I can help.” (Or, even an all-caps “Heck ya!!!.”)
You might think saying “no” isn’t throwing the ball back. But it is. The “connected no” acknowledges the invitation, shows gratitude and closes the door. A connected no might read: “Thank you so much for this invitation. We’re staying closer to home this year, and won't be able to come.” Or perhaps: “This sounds so fun! We are spending more time with the kids in the evening this year, unfortunately, won’t be able to make it.” Or even: “We’re practicing more hygge this year.”
Do I practice this for every single invitation I receive? Nope. Does life get crazy? You bet. Is it hard to sometimes pin down your partner to decide what and how to attend? Yup. (Hi honey 👋)
If you recognize a stress response in your body at an invitation, that’s data. What is this telling you? Why don’t you want to go? On the flip side, if you realize you wish you were invited to more things, that’s data, too. How do you start to put yourself out there more often?
This is all practice. When we start thinking more intentionally about what we want to attend, when we choose to be the places we are, when we practice not going to certain events that aren’t serving at this moment, we begin to have the way we spend our time match the life we actually want. It is a powerful thing to experience the recognition of being where you want to be.
As ever,
Priya
Inspirations
“The Universe Is a House Party”: A colleague shared this poem by Tracy K. Smith, which appears in her book Life on Mars. It’s absolutely stunning. “We grind lenses to an impossible strength, / Point them toward the future, and dream of beings / We’ll welcome with indefatigable hospitality: / How marvelous you’ve come!” I mean, wow.
Alex Katz: Gathering I absolutely loved taking my kids to Alex Katz’s dazzling retrospective on our favorite subject. At 95 years old, and still a working artist, it’s a stunning tribute to craft, friendship, and his deep, life-long artistic community. His pictures present a world of perfect dinner guests—graceful, untroubled, irresistibly attractive,” the late art critic Peter Schjeldahl wrote of Katz. “A beguiling fiction.”
The Six Forces That Fuel Friendship: Julie Beck has conducted over 100 “Friendship Files” interviews where friends reflect on their relationships. In this piece for the Atlantic, she highlights the series’ recurring themes: 1) accumulation 2) attention 3) intention 4) ritual 5) imagination 6) grace. Now this is service journalism. Beautiful.
