Gathering for Good: 4 Tips for Hosting Healthful Gatherings

Cold weather is rolling back around again, and we all know that can only mean one thing: the season for gathering, gobbling, and gifting is upon us. As an added bonus, many of us are looking forward to gathering safely in-person this holiday season! We understand that gatherings may still look different for many groups this year, and that communities come in all shapes and sizes, equally deserving of celebration and support. Hosting gatherings with family and friends offers important prosocial benefits that many of us have unfortunately done without over the past year. The pandemic had significant impacts on many of our senses of general well-being, feelings of hopefulness and optimism, and the perceived strength of our social support systems and inner resiliency.

The group bonding provided by gatherings creates powerful feelings of belonging and connectedness that contribute to our personal resilience-reservoirs- relationships, emotions, and memories that empower us to better endure difficult seasons of life. Having some extra cushion in our reservoirs helps us battle feelings of stress, depression, anxiety, and many other behavioral health concerns. Stable and comforting friendships have a critical positive impact on our overall behavioral health outcomes, and building and maintaining them is serious business (the gatherings don’t have to be though). Even interactions with “weak ties” or those who are acquaintances have benefits for our happiness and belonging! Read on to learn four strategies for hosting gatherings that provide you and your guests with meaningful, joyful, and intentional opportunities to foster closeness, strengthen relationships, and enjoy significant emotional wellness benefits.

Establish Expectations

So you have your date picked and your guest list situated, but now you have to reach out and invite people to your gathering. Whether you decide to send old-fashioned snail mail or shoot your pals an instant message, it’s important that you help your guests establish expectations for your gathering. Let invitees know roughly how many people are invited and from what social groups- are these your work-friends, trivia-friends, or great-aunts’ friends? Use language that communicates the situational-specifics and mood you are expecting for the gathering- is it a “get-together” with snacks and mingling, or a “party” with a full dinner and gift exchange? Depending on your guests’ comfort level with gathering indoors, you can also share any Covid-specific precautions you plan to take.

Use this invitation as an opportunity to let your invitees know that there is context for them being there, they have a special place saved for them, and regardless of the many identities we all walk through life wearing, they will find meaningful community and companionship at this gathering. Discuss with them your hopes to create an intentional opportunity for guests to establish new relationships and/or re-stabilize older ones.

Protect & Connect Your Guests

For this tip, we are taking a well-written page out of Priya Parker’s book, The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters. Parker introduces the idea of being a host that practices “generous authority” by “imposing in a way that serves your guests.” What does servant-imposition look like in a gathering designed to bring people together and foster closeness? According to Parker, it boils down to protecting and connecting your guests.

Protecting your guests is a fine-line equation between supporting the more introverted guests in their initial introductions and social engagements while simultaneously reeling in overly conversational extroverted guests that might tend to dominate interactions. Spend some time before your gathering intentionally collecting your thoughts, consider what you know about the social inclinations of your guests, and formulate potential suggestions for seating arrangements or small-group dynamics that you think might work well. Check in with folks, one-on-one, throughout your gathering if you have any concerns about how they are fitting in, being prepared to make a suggestion if they’re feeling left out.

Connecting your guests looks different depending on the context of your gathering. If you’re bringing together a group of well-acquainted friends, consider what congratulatory events have been experienced by attendees over the last year and find opportunities to celebrate them with others during your gathering. This strategy can work with unacquainted groups too but be careful not to disclose personal information guests might not have volunteered themselves.

Create Opportunities for Closeness

Closeness, also known as intimacy, means different things to different people. Our understandings of intimacy are informed by our communication styles, social inclinations, interests, and upbringings. There are many ‘types’ of intimacy but we’re going to focus on three for your gathering: emotional, physxical, and experiential.

Emotional intimacy allows us to be open and communicative with our friends, letting us share about ourselves with the understanding that we won’t be judged or excluded for doing so. You can promote emotional intimacy at your gathering by kicking off personal sharing yourself and gently inviting your guests to do the same.
Physical intimacy might call to mind not-safe-for-gatherings activities, but truthfully it comes down to comfortable physical closeness. A big hug from an old friend, a kiss on the check from your college roommate, or even just helping a guest with their coat are all powerful forms of physical intimacy that communicate to people they belong there.
Lastly, experiential intimacy is built by sharing in activities, but they don’t have to happen at your gathering. Do you know that two of your friends watched every episode of The Office? Connect them and invite them into conversation around the experience of watching and enjoying that show. They’ll build experiential intimacy before you know it.

Remember that People Like Being Together

Overly ambitious agendas can get in the way of authentic bonding at a gathering. Feel free to forgo an intricate menu, planned seating arrangement, strict timetable, or any other self-imposed rigidity that you’ve been told is necessary to a successful gathering. Remember that the real value you’re creating is in the connections guests will build, the social support systems they’ll strengthen, and the resiliency reservoirs they get to fill. People love being part of a community; in a way, that’s the best gift you can give anyone this holiday season. So go forth and host healthful gatherings with meaningful, joyful, and intentional opportunities to foster closeness, strengthen relationships, and enjoy significant emotional wellness benefits.