31 No-Stress Holiday Entertaining Tips

Day 15

Throw an open house or cookie swap

"I love to host a tree-trimming open house during the first weekend in December. It's a low key, low stress way to invite friends over where you have enough time to visit with everyone, since people are coming and going at different times of the day," says Charity Curley Matthews, founder of the food blog called Foodlets. She keeps it low-stress with a cookie decorating station for kids (she uses wrapping paper to cover her kiddie table so she's not spending hours later chipping off the dried frosting). "Since we're into cooking on the healthier side, we'll make low-sugar cookies but the kids don't care. They just want frosting and sprinkles!"

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