When you've picked the style of holiday party to throw, whether it be a classic gathering with spiced wine and poinsettias or a retro-style party complete with tinsel and blinking lights, you will need the right local businesses to supply you with the music, decorations, food, and libations to set the right mood. Some of the best attractions the Hudson Valley has to offer are its many shops offering eclectic selections of wine, beer, food, and specialized finds. With little effort, one can host a party with local flair without setting foot in a superstore or mall.
Pick music that keeps the party's energy alive instead of what you've heard at every other holiday party. For your retro-holiday theme, Rick Lange, the manager of Rhino Records in New Paltz, recommends Nouvelle Vague's self-titled debut album of samba covers of '80s hits like Depeche Mode's "Just Can't Get Enough." Also available at Rhino are Space Lullabies and Other Fantasmagore by Ekova and Vincent Van Go Go's Do U Know?, two funky, electronic, world music albums. If you want to keep things classic, a perfect Billie Holiday album to put on is Lady Day: The Best of Billie Holiday, which contains the great and thematic "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm." And if you need a well-done album of holiday classics that stays far away from department-store or elevator remixes of "Jingle Bells" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," Yule Struttin': A Blue Note Christmas features Chet Baker, Eliane Elias, and more top jazz names sure to keep the feeling festive and tasteful—a hard balance to strike.
Forget imported, brand-name beer. The best beer you're likely to find is the kind that comes straight from the local brewery. Most breweries and brew pubs in the valley sell "growlers," half-gallon jugs of your beer of choice, brewed at the site. The Gilded Otter in New Paltz brews a dark, roasted-wheat German beer called Dunkelweizen, perfect for cold weather ($15 per growler or $12 if you make your purchase after a meal). Keegan Ales in Kingston has its popular Mother's Milk, a stout known for its rich, chocolate-coffee aroma, available in bottles, growlers, and kegs. Hyde Park Brewing Company's holiday amber lager, spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg, is available in growlers at $17. If you feel more comfortable with bottles, Ommegang brewery in Cooperstown is another regional classic. Its Three Philosophers' Quadrupel and Ommegang Abbey Ale both go well with warm holiday foods.
If you want wine at your shindig, hit up local wineries for their best-tasting products. The Whitecliff Vineyard in Gardiner recommends its red wine or Merlot. The vineyard also offers its Malbec-Bordeaux blend, a deep purple wine with a warm velvet feeling ($18.95 a bottle). Alison Wines & Vineyards in Red Hook has a holiday spice wine nicknamed "grog" by its customers. Officially titled Winter Warmer, it can be heated in a saucepan with a bit of sugar ($11.95 a bottle). Adair Vineyard in New Paltz offers a mulled wine or a peach dessert wine, to be brought out with cakes and cookies ($21.95 a bottle).
Daniel Gendron, the owner of Gendron Catering, says that the most important thing to feed a good cocktail party is "a nice mix of hors d'oeuvres that don't duplicate themselves and are bite-size, friendly, not messy, look attractive, and taste fabulous." For hors d'oeuvres, The Cheese Plate in New Paltz has the quintessential December cheese, British Colston-Basset Stilton, which goes well with wine or port; the shop also stocks Dutch caramelized gouda, also perfect for the season. While there, pick up a few flavors of chutney or the best-selling apple cranberry and Perinese black fig jam. And if you're thinking about a retro holiday party, you've probably been wondering when the yule log would be mentioned—a yule log made from cake of course. Desserticus in Stanfordville makes such a log with vanilla sponge cake, caramel, and chestnut mousse, complete with meringue mushroom frosting and chocolate flakes on top. The cake serves 6 to 8 people at $23.99. For munchies, purchase an assortment of hand-cut holiday butter cookies for $17.99 a pound. Or cop out on food duty and hire a caterer. Try Gendron Catering, based in Rhinebeck. Gendron will cater your cocktail party at $20-25 per person; a four-course sit-down dinner is $30-35 per person.
The decorations at your party should go one of two ways: gaudy-but-fun or tasteful. For the first, try tinsel and misteltoe with a red-and-green color scheme to match your yule log or Bugles with shrimp dip. To be tasteful, go for a white-and-gold color scheme with decorations from the outdoors. The Phantom Gardener in Rhinebeck offers fresh-cut winter berries and pine boughs recommended for wrapping around a banister or accenting hallways, doorways, and mantels. A bit of fresh pine or winterberry in the center of the dining table makes for an understated and beautiful decoration. Cocoon in New Paltz has a wide selection of high-quality tableware, including wine and cocktail glasses. The store carries rubber ID tags for your stemware bearing holiday toasts or messages like "formidable," "opulent," and "supple." (A package of nine tags is $12.) And don't forget the cocktail napkins with fun designs like peppers or grapes ($2.50 per package).
Send your invitations out early, and don't shy away from creativity. Maureen Missner of Paper Trail in Rhinebeck says, "The most important thing is to not be timid, and to really embrace color and texture and pattern, because that's what makes it exciting." Paper Trail offers boxed, ready-made invitations, as well as copious supplies to create your own. You will find handmade, colorful papers from countries like India, China, and Vietnam, as well as on-site custom printing. Missner speaks about making your invitations in unexpected shapes and colors and including accessories like ribbons or paper clips. Above all, try to surprise people with the way you invite them. A good idea is to put some cloves or a small pine clipping in each envelope, to use scent as well as color and texture.