Post-Holiday New Years Brunch

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Friends are definitely forever…except during the holidays. Between the shopping, decorating, entertaining, airport trips and the wrapping/unwrapping, sometimes our best buds fall to the wayside.

So rather than call each friend up with your humble apologies, try throwing a "Welcome Back to Reality Brunch" and help soften the blow of those post-holiday blues.

A few weeks after the New Year is a great time to get together with friends because everyone is ready for another gathering by then and yet still brimming over with goals, good intentions and freshly-scrubbed dreams. It's a positive, fun vibe and the more support we give one another during the planning stages of goals and visions, the more likely we are to succeed.

To start, I suggest keeping the guest list on the smaller side so that it facilitates conversation around what each person is looking forward to and any fun holiday stories to share. If you think about it like a staged show, each guest should get a comfortable ten to fifteen minutes "stage time." I've thrown Ladies Brunches where I've had just six guests and thrown a topic out for discussion that lasted several hours with lots of laughs.

Of course, there was wine involved…

For décor, I would go with the crisp, clean look for winter with a splash of color: white linens, with white dishes if you have them, and different colored vases with seasonal flowers. In the middle of the table, place a shallow, decorative bowl and put each guests' name inside. Then have the guests draw names and prepare a question for the guest they've drawn. It can be any kind of question geared towards the coming year like, "Where would you like to travel this year and why?" or "If you could have your choice of mentors this year, who would you choose?" This is a great ice breaker and will give you great insight into friends you may have known for a long time.

The menu should be a little naughty and a little nice--meaning some folks will be dieting, so it's good to have plenty of low calorie vegetable dishes on hand like salads, grilled seasonal vegetables, vegetable soup, etc. I usually serve a lentil soup or vegetable soup, appetizer quiches, a green salad, fruit salad, and a "naughty" indulgent casserole. The traditional smoked salmon, capers and sliced red onions with bagels and cream cheese is always a favorite. I tend to avoid the hams and deli meats as some of us are still having post-traumatic holiday leftover stress.

For dessert, try a nice chocolate mousse that you can make ahead of time and throw a few berries on top to impress your now-intoxicated friends. Did I mention that choice wines are a great accompaniment to the "Reality Doesn't Always Bite Brunch"? Ask your friends to bring a bottle or two of wine or champagne and watch the noon hour turn into the dinner hour without the slightest hitch.

Then tell everyone to go home and get crackin' on those goals! Time is tickin' and you will be watching over them. Because that's what friends do.