At the beginning of 2018, I made the conscious note to myself that I would focus on building community this year.  For me, that specifically meant strengthening my ties with local foster parent friends like myself through regular get-togethers and, yes, the tried-and-true potluck method of sharing a meal.  While you are likely not a foster parent, this doesn’t mean you can’t steal my ideas though! They’ve worked just as well for my non-foster-pal friend set. And if you’re on the fence, thinking of all the extra work hosting a meal involves, here are some things to think about that might calm those worries.

• Everyone is so busy busy busy all the time, nobody will come!  Look, yes, we are all busy. But don’t let the Cult of Busy derail your attempts at connection.  Your kid can miss a dance class, their kid can miss gymnastics, I firmly believe that all coming together and saying, yes, let’s make this a priority over other things on the calendar once a month or once every six weeks or every other month is worth missing something else.  Plan the event. Try to make it work, but also trust people to choose you over the random activity sometimes. And if they never do, drop them from the invite list. Easy peasy. Build the community that shows up and prioritizes itself.

• The kids are all so picky, nobody will all eat one meal!  Having a potluck helps a lot in this regard; if every parent is bringing something to share, one would hope that they’d strategically bring something they know their kid(s) will eat.  We also always have a bunch of dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets in the freezer, because we’re nothing if not #basic and kids are nothing if not willing to always eat a dinosaur-shaped chicken nugget (mostly, anyway).

• We’ll spend the whole time parenting and none catching up!  This might be true, but we’ve found that as long as we don’t care too much about disaster mess and strategically put away most of the toys in the living room, the kids will occupy themselves quite happily with the toys that are left out, and will happily run around the yard asking for adult attention only like, 50% of the time.  That other 50% is golden! Take what you can get, roll with the rest.

• I don’t have a big enough table or enough chairs to fit everyone!  There are a couple ways around this. One is if you’ve got good weather, picnic blankets outside work very well.  You can also meet up at a park with a picnic shelter, eliminating the kitchen mess and solving the seating problem in one fell swoop, with a bonus of a playground hopefully also being present to occupy the kids.  Win win win. Another option is to slowly build up a contingent of extra chairs over time for such purpose. Keep an eye out at thrift stores and yard sales, especially, because you do not need to break the bank on a Target run for this.  Do you know how long that kid’s butt is going to be in that chair? Not long! So plan accordingly.

• We’re just so tired by the end of the day, the last thing I want to do is socialize!  We are all tired. I hear you. But this will be worth it. I pinky-promise.