Hosting Friends and Family in The New Year

I hosted friends and family for the first time ever for the new year's celebration. Typically, I would spend the first day of the year at my parent's and we'd celebrate with them. But this year, we made the decision to have them over — and it was lovely, after all. While planning how we'd handle the activities of the 1st, I and my wife decided to send out invites to a few of our friends who are available and could come over on the 2nd day of the year. So we ended up with a list of 6 people who are ready and willing to show up.

On the 1st, we had my dad, mum, and my youngest brother (Quadri) around watching Kọ́leósó on Youtube — well, Quadri, not so much. I made pounded yam and egusi soup for all of us with my wife's lovely food processor. My mum is a picky eater who really only eats amala as her only swallow, so my wife had to make it for her instead, lol. Wait... I am talking about lunch. For breakfast, we had some nice jollof rice and chicken. The day passed by quickly with the watching of the series on Youtube and we soon bade them farewell.

We had a fun afternoon with friends on day 2. I had told them to come by 12pm but most applied the Nigerian concept of time to their movement and got to my place around 2pm. This extended our activities late into the night by exactly two hours. I guess that will teach them to take my time serious when I host this again (in a decade, probably)😒. I welcomed them with small chops, candied peanut, and cheese balls. We had some fried rice and chicken in the afternoon with a few bottles of wine, and some fruit juice. We then had a 24 session karaoke — 3 rounds per individual, and played some charades. We had some throwbacks to oldies like Yungba Yungba by Jesse King, and Rasputin which my daughter really loves and dance to with her spindly tiny legs. Later in the night, we saw them off with hampers that we had carefully curated for each couple. I forgot to mention the 6 people were a couple pair 😜.

Two days later, I am able to say I am grateful for the gift of friends and family. I am grateful that I am in a capacity to create beautiful memories for the people around me during the holidays, and I can only hope and pray that we do more of this the older we grow.