My best not so well kept secret is that I’d choose a stay at home New Year’s Eve dinner party over any other kind of bash, no matter how appealing or fabulous they might promise to be. For the past two years, my daughter has blessed me with many things and one of them is the best excuse to not have to go to a party for the New Year. There, I said it. And before you cast the first stone, ask yourself: what’s there not to like about a nice sit down dinner, sipping on champagne in the privacy of your own home and enjoying the wonderful company of your closest friends?

We decided pretty late to host this dinner and it wasn’t really thoroughly planned, nor did I have a lot of time to do so. Also, I didn’t really want to spend a fortune on flowers and decor so I tried to rely on stuff I could easily do by myself. For the name tags, I recycled kraft paper from a gift bag, which I flag-cut, punch-holed and attached to the linen napkins with the aid of natural linen thread. Everything was ready in under half an hour.

I wanted to keep a simple theme throughout and instead of buying a big bunch of flowers to make a centerpiece, I decided to pick out a flower to suit each of my friends and place it next to their name tags. There was an understatedly beautiful pink tulip, a stern purple perennial, a glamorous white lily, a lively Arab’s Eye, a white lilac for me, a delicate purple poppy, a fragrant grogeous dark pink rose and a couple more. Everyone had a lot of fun discovering what flower they got and it was heartwarming to see their faces lit up. All flowers are beautiful and I think it’s a compliment to be associated with one, but then again it’s a two-way compliment, since all my friends are beautiful too.

I’m happy to report we did have a lot of fun in spite of staying in: we enjoyed lovely food, great conversation and some laughs since we had champagne before, during and after midnight and we even lit sparklers on the terrace in the freezing cold. It was kind of a great way to kick off 2015. Happy New Year, everyone!