Soup Party

It has been our tradition for the past several years to host a Christmas Eve soup and bread party. We would make a big pot of French Market Soup (thanks, GiGi!), serve crusty bread, maybe a salad and definitely some fruit and cheese. The idea was a cozy, low-key way to get together with some of our favorite people, and to keep an open invitation to anyone who needed a place to go at Christmastime. I have so many good memories of past Christmas Eves that I revisit.

I couldn’t bear the thought of giving up this tradition this year, especially as we have been really mindful about preserving important family traditions while trying to adapt and create new memories as well. There is something so fundamentally nourishing and comforting about soup that everyone seems to recognize and appreciate. As a family, getting through this first semester has been a struggle, a feat, in many ways, and we didn’t want anything fancy to kick of the Christmas season, just a comforting way to mark the achievement.


Transition challenges and surprise baby news (19 weeks now!) aside, we kept hearing echoes of how others are also feeling worn down and exhausted as the semester comes to a close. So many unforeseen events have thrown several families off-track in the past few months. So, in the face of this, and even though it would’ve been way easier to not put forth this kind of effort, we thought, “what better thing to do than to gather together and enjoy each other’s company in quiet celebration of Christmas?”

The kids has their own special table.

So, preparations began. We talked to our neighbors who share the duplex because they are friends and I wanted their buy-in before anything happened, since once I get going, I like to think big. They were interested and gave the go-ahead, since it would be much easier to share the burden of prepping and space. Originally, my idea was to invite the entire staff and their families. That equals roughly 100 people (plus families). Did I mention we live in a 2 bedroom, one-bath duplex? So…I scaled back and decided to invite everyone on campus because we have met so many incredible families right here who have been such a system of support to us. Again, math got in the way. We added up all the people who live on the campus and ended up around 150: still a staggering number. So…we thought that it would be a low-key way to invite our closest neighbors and get to know the people who live immediately around us better. Lower campus (which is what where we live is called) houses 75 people. Clearly, though, during Christmas break people would have other plans and so we felt that we’d go for it and be happy if a handful of those families/individuals could make it, especially after a long and exhausting semester. We walked door to door with invitations, Claire made a speech at each house and promised the prospect of coloring and we were off. The RSVPs trickled in and then the floodgates opened. Originally, every single family was coming, plus all their relatives visiting from out of town.


Hmmm. Ok. Apparently, this was something many people were craving. Probably, it was the cuteness of the two small invitation-bearers and the promise of being able to color with them. Now we had to use math to figure out how many times we should multiply each recipe! Normally a do-it-myself kind of person, I reached back out to the people who had offered help and, by the end, it was a wonderful community effort.

Our neighbors organized chairs and tables to be brought down from the school and set up. Thankfully, “winter” weather here is in the high 70s and sitting outside was perfect. We made 3 types of soup (Butternut Squash, Chili, and Italian Bean & Pasta), and had 3 others bring a big pot (Creamy Potato w/ Bacon, Chicken Noodle, Vegetable Beef). There were homemade rolls, cornbread, oatmeal bread and sourdough. The desserts were amazing: traditional chocolate whoopee pies, pumpkin whoopee pies, Kirk’s famous chocolate chip cookies, several Christmas goodies, Peanut butter balls, and on, and on. We feasted and hung out and the kids played all over. Several families had children back from college and those alumni sat together comparing experiences, and enjoying the reunion. People sat and talked with their neighbors and enjoyed each other’s company long past the end time. We made coffee and tea and people went back for more.

In the end, there was plenty of food. I never made a final head count, but all tables were filled at one point and the atmosphere was completely relaxed. It was a communal sigh of relief. Several people left from the party to go straight to the airport to catch a flight back to North America. There were plenty of hands to help clean up. We wished everyone a Merry Christmas, tucked two tired and filthy girls into their new bunk bed and collapsed, exhausted and happy, to the couch. It was just the kind of nourishment we needed