New Year's Eve and New Year's Day invitations

Timing a New Year invitation

Four weeks out, and then accept that a third of your replies will arrive in the final three days. New Year’s Eve is the night people keep their options open on, so do not read a quiet first fortnight as a failure. What helps is giving them a reason that is specific: a dish you are making, a time the toast happens, a reason to come to yours rather than drift.

If you are hosting the brunch on the 1st instead, send both invitations at once. Plenty of people will take the morning after over the night itself, and that is a better party than it sounds.

1. Four weeks out: send it, with the arrival window and the end time on it.
2. Two weeks out: nudge in the group chat with the link again. Expect little movement.
3. Four days out: this is when replies land. Count heads and buy accordingly.
4. Two days out: say what you are pouring and what is left to bring.

Write an end time, and mean it

A New Year invitation without an end time is an invitation to find three people in your kitchen at four in the morning. "From 9pm, winding down by 1" is not rude, it is useful, and people with babysitters will thank you for it.

Put the arrival window on it too. A toast at midnight means people should be there by 11.30, so say that rather than hoping.

What to put on the bring list

Ice, mixers and something to eat at 1am. Those are the three things that run out and the three things nobody volunteers for. Seed the list with them and the party gets better by itself.

• A bag of ice. Two if more than fifteen people are coming.
• Mixers: tonic, soda, something not alcoholic that is not just water.
• Something savoury for after midnight. Bread, cheese, crisps, a pizza somebody puts in the oven at one.
• A playlist from whoever cares most about the music, agreed in advance.