Booking a function room is what happens when nobody started early enough. There are better options, and October is when they are still available.

Three ways to do it

At home, or on your own site. A barn, a yard, a large room, a marquee in a garden. We arrive with the kitchen — ovens, refrigeration, our own power and water — so nothing needs to exist there first. For a company party this is usually cheaper than a hotel and considerably better.

Take somewhere over entirely. The Outlook at Fox’s Marina in Ipswich is our own waterside café, bar and restaurant, and it can be hired exclusively. The kitchen and the team are ours, so the food is the food we would cook at a wedding rather than whatever a venue’s caterer does in December.

A proper dinner for a smaller group. Eight to twenty, three courses, in a room you already like. See private dining at home.

What to serve

For a party that stays standing, bowl food carried through the room. Newmarket Musk sausages with creamy mash and red onion gravy is a plate of food rather than a canapé, and the room never stops talking.

For a seated dinner: pan-seared scallops with crispy prosciutto, venison loin with roast celeriac and braised red cabbage, a spiced poached pear afterwards. The full winter menu.

Turkey is not compulsory and nobody will miss it. If you want the traditional version we will cook it properly — but it is worth knowing the option exists before you default to it.

Company parties

Decide what the evening is for before you decide the menu. If it is a thank you, seat people and feed them properly. If it is a chance for two departments to actually meet, do not seat them at all.

Trying to do both produces a stilted evening. More on corporate catering.

The practical bits

• Dietary requirements collected in writing, not on the night
• Food that arrives when it was promised, because people have booked taxis
• Enough front of house to keep clearing — a room full of abandoned plates ages an evening by an hour

When to book

October for December. By mid-November the good dates and the good staff are gone, and the last fortnight of December is the tightest week in our year. See what is included and how booking works.

New Year’s Eve

New Year is the hardest party of the year to pitch, because it runs for six hours and the middle of it is where things sag. Three shapes work.

A seated dinner, early. Sit down at eight, three courses, finished by half past ten, and the last ninety minutes are free. It works because it front-loads the formality — nobody is being called to a table at half past eleven.

A standing party, fed properly. Bowl food carried through the room across the evening rather than one meal. Five bowls a head replaces dinner and the room never stops moving. This is the version that needs the most staff, and the one people most often under-resource.

Two halves. Canapés and drinks first, then something substantial at eleven. A hot plate late is worth more than an elaborate one early, and it gets people through midnight in better shape. Fish and chips in newspaper cones at half past eleven is a serious suggestion.

Whichever you choose, decide the shape first and the menu second. Most disappointing New Year parties are well-catered events in the wrong format.

Menus

Christmas and New Year food should be generous and it should be hot. These are the starting points:

• Sharing and feasting menus — the format that suits a long table and a dark evening
• Bowl food menus — for a standing drinks party where nobody wants a plate and a fork
• Canapé menus — for a company drinks evening or an arrival
• Evening and street food menus — for later on, when people have been dancing
• Vegan and vegetarian menus — a proper main course rather than the vegetable side of everyone else’s

December books early. If you are thinking about it in September you are in good time; if you are thinking about it in November, ring rather than email.