Kimberly Adams

So let's just say that you want your party to look really nice and let's all set expectations that none of our parties are going to be Instagram nice.

Like just let it go, let it go.

But you want to make the party look nice for your friends or your families, but you don't have the money for expensive decor or the time for a lot of these projects that people have.

What are some easy ways to make a party kind of look a bit more elevated?

And you can put tea lights in so many different things to make it look thematic for the time of year.

I always love it when I see people putting them in mini pumpkins.

I think that's adorable.

Even the old receptacles for like candles that you've burned through, if you wash them out, you can drop a tea light in there and it gives the same effect.

Okay, so your cookbook, the one that you wrote for, well, I guess you wrote them all, but the one that has your name on it is called What Can I Bring?

Recipes to Help You Live Your Guest Life.

What do you think makes a good party guest?

Yeah, I host quite a few parties and I love entertaining and I love hosting for my friends and family, but I have been burned on that what kind of guest thing.

Because one time I asked somebody to bring paper plates because I was almost out, but they didn't show up until like two hours into the party.

and then i've had other times where people in their effort to be helpful are just like hovering over me when i'm like air traffic controlling in the kitchen and they're like you gotta enjoy the party i'm like this is part of what i'm enjoying trying to enjoy it let me do my thing yeah

I didn't know that was a French thing.

Learn something new every day on Make Me Smart.

A while back, and we talked about it here on the show, there was this big discourse about a piece in The Atlantic about why Americans should party more.

And I know certainly in my friend group, we were talking about how people don't want to entertain because they don't want people in their homes or they think they're not going to do a good job.

What did you think of that whole discourse and what's holding people back from entertaining or partying more?

So there's a bunch of people in the chat talking about how one of the big things holding them back from entertaining is that they don't want to clean their house or they're overwhelmed by the idea of cleaning ahead of this.