Before the Party
Getting Things Ready
• You can do things like vacuuming and tidying up a day or two before the party. But you might want to clean the bathroom the day of, especially if it’s the only bathroom in your apartment and you’ll be using it earlier in the day. Make sure there’s TP on the rolls. And if people will be using the bathroom you normally use, and you have stuff in your cabinets you don’t want folks to see, hide it. Someone will definitely take a peek.
• If you’re going to be using the same glasses, plates, and silverware for the party that you normally do, and some of it is sitting dirty in the dishwasher, run the load even if it isn’t full. You want as many clean glasses and dinnerware available for the party as possible.
• Take care of any food prep you can do ahead of time.
• Decide where you’re going to put people’s coats. You may want to clear out a closet for this purpose. Or you can plan to lay them on a bed. If you have two available bedrooms, it’s nice to have one “coatroom” for the ladies and one for the men. That way you don’t end up with a giant pile of coats that resembles Marjory the Trash Heap from Fragglerock.