Hosting a Soft Autumn Birthday Dinner—With a Toddler & a Bump
A few weeks ago, we gathered to celebrate another year for me, around our table. A full table, surrounded by flowers bouquets while admiring the beauty of colorful leaves behind the window... Simple and heartfelt. Yet while balancing between looking after a little one while also expecting, at first, the thought of hosting felt a little too demanding. Even with pregnancy nausea and extreme fatigue, we did manage with a delicious yet simplistic menu, help from my spouse (we're in this together) and my parents taking the little one for a few hours, which after she took a long nap. Preparing a lot ahead does help too, and most of the party decorations can be set up a night ahead. Here is how we styled and served a beautiful yet effortless autumn celebration at home.
Low-Stress Hosting: Choose a Menu That Works for You
The thing with having little kids and being pregnant is not that the schedule would be busy, it's that the situation is unpredictable. Every parent out there knows, how all kinds of situations can take your schedule by surprise with a little one, and that pregnancy nausea and fatigue don't always come at a set time with a warning. So, to throw a beautiful dinner party and to survive it without a burnout, when you're blessed with small children and/or pregnancy, the very key is to choose a menu which either cooks itself for hours in the oven, or is arranged, instead of complicated hours long cooking.
For our dinner, warm blinis were both one of my pregnancy cravings and also a meal simple yet delicious. Golden and pillowy, blinis with their colorful toppings also bring an immediate sense of luxury to the table. I was long pondering whether I would make the blinis myself, as I've done a hundred times before, but knowing my circumstances, no one had anything against it that we decided to serve high-quality frozen blinis sought from a store the night before.
Besides the blinis, we offered smetana, which is a delicious type of fatty sour cream, fresh gravlax salmon, cold-smoked salmon, black and red vegan caviar, a few kinds of pickled and salted cucumber, red onion and dill. If blinis are not something you're currently craving for, then living with a Frenchman, two ideas that immediately come to my mind are raclette and fondue. For my birthday last year, we served our guests raclette, which is always a hit. One time my spouse hosted us a cheese fondue night, which was equally successful.
Other hearty and relatively easy meals to cook for a large group are for example dishes made in the oven, like pulled pork burgers with homemade coleslaw salad, French casseroles, or whole meals cooked in a multicook airfryer. We have the multicooker, and one meal we like to make, is a salmon poke bowl. Salmon in a teriyaki sauce goes on top, and rice in the bottom. Once it's cooked, we usually serve it with mango, avocado and cucumber.
What comes to drink, then my dream is to always make a I sometimes attempt to make some dashing cocktail-mocktail, but truth is, that with a Frenchman in the house, the drinks are usually well taken care of, with some quality French rosé or red wine (rarely white), or a crémant. Not many people know of crémant, but crémant is a type of French sparkling wine made using the same traditional method as Champagne, but produced outside the Champagne region. In Finland, you get a top-notch crémant for around €15 to €20, whereas Champagne usually starts around €40 for a bottle. For my birthday though, hosted on a Sunday by a nauseous pregnant lady, we served our close ones alcohol free sparkling rosé, which I made pretty with some cotton candy on top. I've seen that done on especially at baby showers, and thought that our toddler might enjoy the chemistry experience of dropping the cotton candy in liquid.
Setting the Scene: Easy Decor Set Up the Night Before
I've made it this far, without yet telling that my birthday party isn't the only one held in autumn. Many of our loved ones have their birthdays during this season, and also my spouse and our little one. The decor ideas for my birthday just sort of happened, when I found myself shopping for birthday decorations for our daughter's upcoming Halloween-themed birthday party. I decided to grab a pack of balloons, a glittery pink table runner and pink napkins, and that became the simple core of the decoration for this dinner party. I paired them with a white linen tablecloth, two golden pumpkins, and some crystal table sprinkle and that's it. I also put a few faux white rosebuds to hang next to the balloons with a white thread—small things like that can really elevate something simple. Last year, I had a colorful, golden and orange autumn theme with maple leaf garlands, but now I didn't yet feel like swapping out our pink pillows to fall colors yet, that I'll keep for our little one's birthday party.
Piece of Cake
When it comes to cakes, there's no competing in taste with the tasty cakes my mom makes, and she's always proposing it herself, so also this time, I didn't attempt a take of my own. Cake is truly one of the highlight moments of any party, and so was it this time. My mom proposed a few different varieties, and to go after the blinis, I thought that the lingonberry chocolate mousse cake might go well. And oh boy, was it love at first bite! The chocolate mousse paired with acidic lingonberries was something I'm still thinking of to this day... So much, that my mom already proposed to make the same cake for our daughter's birthday celebration on her actual birthday celebrated with a few relatives, before her big kids party.
Naturally, birthdays often come with presents. With this part, I had no part nor knowledge of beforehand, so all of the warm wishes go to close ones, who pampered me once again, and I'm very, very grateful. That included a touch of Paris, a perfume by Chanel, to remind me that even in the middle of the sweet, chaotic days of motherhood, there's always time to honor womanhood and beauty... The true l'art de vivre.
Looking Ahead
Now my eyes are already on the upcoming birthday of our little one and then my spouse's. This time is always eventful for us thanks to so many birthdays, which is lovely, but I'm also very happily looking forward to the newest addition to our family and birthday calendar, our baby due in the Spring. How sweet to have another birthday to celebrate at the opposite time! To welcome our baby and younger sibling, I have already sought a huge amount of spring bulbs, including crocuses, tulips, alliums, to name a few... But more on that later, once I start planting.
Wishing you warm autumn gatherings filled with love. Try not to stress too much, but if you do, then try to imagine yourself as a guest at your own event: I promise you, you would be enjoying just the fact of being there, in good company and enjoying some food and drinks, not caring about every little detail. Others don't notice the toys (and more) hiding underneath the sofa, or care if the plates or glasses don't match... Actually, it might be their favorite little quirk of your parties. So, remember to truly sit down and enjoy the evening as much as your guests do.
Comments