Party advice please!

[TheTwirlyPoos]

Hosting a party next weekend. Going from mid afternoon til late. We have lots of friends with small children and then some without, so we think we've got about 30 in the day ( and then about the same in the evening).

I was planning on doing party good and canapés for the afternoon then a curry for the eve. Does that work? Do puddings after curry or do I need puddings with party food too?

Any other ideas (apart from a time machine to not do this...) I'd be grateful!

I’m doing similar (an open house) but probably about 30 total

I’d suggest something to keep the kids busy (games/toys/activities) and in 1 place ideally 😆

Food wise: afternoon seems ok, but curry doesn’t seem very festive so would not be my first choice

I would suggest both savoury & sweet options with your party food as I understand from your post it will be different guests for afternoon and evening

For both events, I'd do a variety of mince pies; Stollen bites; Lebkuchen; chocolate biscuits ; bowls of grapes and satsumas. Basically raid the Christmas aisle, starting with Lidl and Aldi for quality not just saving £.

We went to a party recently, that only catered spicy food ie curry options and the kids went hungry, and irritable because there wasn't a child friendly option for them. Curry is a great idea for the adults but if you have little guests in the evening, I would make sure there is an alternative food option for them.

My go to for easy mass catering like this is pulled pork as you can leave it in the slow cooker or oven all day and then whip it out and serve with buns, chips, coleslaw and grown ups like. If you have any veggies you can buy a veggie version or do some falafels.

I need to come up with something else for our NYE bash this year as its getting a bit repetitive though so will be watching for suggestions
A cheese board and a chocolate trifle or brownies for dessert perhaps