The Disco-Era Descends Upon Us: Dinner Club in All it’s Polyester Glory!

Yes, Dinner Club is back this month! It’s so great to return to normal life after the swirling craze of the holidays… But alas, “normal” in our group means that it’s time to get ready for our one big costume affair of the Dinner Club season! Let me just say that normal is anything but!

This month’s Dinner Club theme is “A Night at the Disco”. We’ll be donning our bell bottoms, tube tops (ok maybe not!) and platform shoes for this evening with friends. We have a group of true participators; this is one of the reasons, I believe, that our Dinner Club has been so successful over the years. Everyone throws caution to the wind and is completely on-board for whatever we plan together.

As I’ve mentioned before, most of our Dinner Clubs are just that – Dinner. We nearly always have a theme, but it’s typically a theme centered around the food. Once a year, however, we break from that norm and have a full-out costumed party. Our first one was a few years ago when we had our “Roaring 20’s” party. (You can see a few pictures of “the crew” by clicking on the photos page of this blog in the right-side margin.) We did it that first time and then agreed that it was such fun we should include one-a-year if possible.

We do “dress up” for other theme dinners throughout the year, but to make it fun, rather than a burden on everyone, we try to only really get crazy once per season. For example, on luau night we all wore what we already had in our closet that was luau appropriate. Once we did a “Last Dinner on the Titanic”. We dressed up for that Dinner Club, but only in what we already had around the house that was appropriate or we borrowed a few small elements (aka – a cocktail dress you already own and borrow some long gloves, jewelry or a hat).

ONCE per year we encourage everyone to go “all out” and make the costumes key. This is that time! That doesn’t mean that food isn’t our focus – We are Dinner Club! We still have a very 70’s menu planned for the night (see below for our menu of fondue and other era-appropriate elements), but we keep the food simple on these costume nights. Who wants to prepare something difficult or time-consuming when your crazy 70’s angel-sleeves and afro are in the way?!

For this one, we’ve planned the food as “stations” so that people can eat, dance, mingle, etc. as they like. Our host and hostess can decide the details of how they want to handle it, but we won’t be sitting at the table throughout, with served courses, as we typically would. Can’t wait to see how it all comes out, but in this group, it’s usually zany and fun! More info is coming in the next few weeks! Keep an eye out for some great recipes, tips and follow-up photos!

We’re back!