Do You Throw Housewarming Parties?

Lately, a steady stream of my friends have moved into new homes — but unlike when everyone moved into their first apartments a few years ago, no one's had a housewarming party. Dinner parties, brunches, and casual get-togethers, yes . . . but housewarming parties specifically? No. So what gives?

I thought it might be a result of the economy — at one point, so many of my friends were laid off from their jobs that we started a weekday brunch club. But once I thought about it, I realized I've been to plenty of parties lately, just not any housewarming ones. With so much great cocktail and dinner party inspiration from blogs and magazines, everyone seems to be throwing other types of parties. So what do you think? Do you throw a housewarming party when you move? Do people only throw them for their first homes? Are they becoming passé? Or am I imagining things and they're still thrown pretty regularly?

Image: Apartment Therapy

Comments (36)

We just moved into a place (completely) at the end of February. We've been steadily inviting our closest friends out to our farmfor dinner, breakfast, weekend visits but we're wrestling with whether or not we should have a big housewarming party and just invite everyone.

The problem is, it's a lot of work with less reward than say, a dinner party. You cook and clean for days and then you don't really get a chance to sit and talk with the people who come out. And I also worry that people aren't having as good a time when it's less personal.

So we're tabling the discussion until the end of March, when all of our stuff will hopefully have places to live and our house will be properly decorated.

-M

I don't know about the rest of the country, but around here it's traditional to bring gifts to housewarming parties. So, I think people may shy away from throwing them for fear that they will look like their just after presents, especially, as you say, with the economy down, and people less able to bring said presents.

It could be that now that they own the home (vs. a temporary rental), they really want it to be complete in their eyes before they specifically celebrate its um, warming.

When my brother moved into his home, he had quite a few gatherings, but no housewarming party until he was able to get a contractor in to do some fairly minor changes. Once the tweaks were done, he finally felt "moved in" and celebrated it.

We abstained from the typical (extremely large, and messy) housewarming parties we'd had in pur previous (rented) houses as we own the house we moved into, and didn't particularly feel like trashing it!

i recently moved into an apartment, but i haven't been able to afford to decorate it the way i'd like to yet. so i am going to hold off on the house warming party. but i will definitely be having one! who doesn't like a good party? and my friends know that if they can't afford a gift, that's completely fine!

House COOLING parties! Like many other commenters, I don't want a big fuss of cleaning or trashing our first house. So after we complete our move, we're throwing a party in our empty and needs-to-be-cleaned-anyway apartment.

Though we are having a small family get together in the house after we've completed the painting and full move in.

Thought about it, but never floowed through... not sure why...

When my husband and I bought our house last year, we had a few small dinners with close friends and families to share our new home with, but no big party. We chose to buy an older home and are renovating it, so it is not "complete" enough to have a lot of people over. 4-5 years ago, I had friends that would buy a newly built house, furnish and decorate it quickly, then have a big housewarming party. I'm wondering if the trend is moving away from brand new homes - if people are choosing to buy an old home and renovate instead. This makes the process to decorate and make it "yours" a little bit longer. We are thinking it would be at least another year before our home is complete.

I just bought a house in January and am having a housewarming open house this weekend. I'm not finished decorating by any means, but a lot of people are interested in seeing the house and I figured, why not have them all over at once? I will be hosting my first "real" party the following weekend - a birthday party for a friend - and wanted to give people a chance to check out the house beforehand. I also have some friends who just bought an old house this last weekend that needs some renovations. They're having their housewarming open house the day after mine. So I guess in my circle of friends, they're still common. Also, I don't expect gifts. I know some of my closer friends will bring one, but I don't expect them from anyone.

I agree - haven't seen many. We were planning on it but had so much to do when we bought that is still in-process that it just hasn't happened after 18 months. Probably won't now. Might be part of it, like @akay was saying.

I'm also just wondering if it feels tacky or something? When we were younger, housewarming parties were more about bigger parties, lots of drinking, etc. People didn't bring gifts, they brought booze. We don't really do those anymore either and so now a housewarming party feels more like it would be an adult affair and then it kind of feels awkward like...are we asking for gifts? Even if you put no gifts on an invite, for some reason it feels like an odd reason for people to come over. I don't know, like to point out that you're having a party because it's a new house and inviting a ton of people just feels like you're asking for something instead of just having a regular party with your regular close friends. Not sure why.

When I moved into my first apartment two years ago I was so caught up with decorating and furnishing that by the time I felt "finished" it had already been a year.

Now I'm on my second apartment and even though I've been here for three months I'm finally ready to have my first housewarming party. I've told guests not to bring any gifts but to bring food or drink if they would like.

We're watching Teen Wolf and Beverly Hills Cop and playing Hollywood Delinquent Bingo, and dressing up as our favourite hot mess star.

We didn't have a housewarming party when we bought our house, we felt like people would think it was just because we wanted presents, and we didn't need anything. We just had several small get togethers with everyone we care about.

We also just bought our first house this winter and am furiously prepping for our housewarming/open house this weekend. It's been a month since we moved in, we certainly have had lots of visitors, but we wanted to have an official party for friends who dont just drop in. We did a lot of research determining the difference between an open house and a housewarming party and decided to have both. Mostly because I wanted to make sure family & family friends would come over, but then theres ample time for our closer friend to really party later into the night. Im sure some presents will come, but we certainly arent expecting them.

I've never thrown a housewarming party because I think it implies that the guests should bring gifts. I'm not comfortable with throwing myself a party where people may feel obligated to bring gifts.

For me, I hate to ask my friends and family to come to a housewarming party when everyone will feel expected to bring gifts. We have a wedding this fall and so many other events leading up to that. So in celebration of our first home, we are going to have a "before" party. That way everyone comes out to see what the place looks like "before" I get my decor and renovation on. I don't have to get the place in perfect shape and that is a huge load off of the party process. And since no one has heard of a "before" party....no one will feel obligated to bring gifts. Informal is more my style anyway and I can't wait to have a "after" party when all of my hard work will pay off!

what's wrong with bringing a little gift to a party?

We are going to throw a "the house is done" party! We bought a reno job and for two years have been gutting & redoing it. Once it is all complete, I want to throw a nice party as so many of our friends & family have seen bits & pieces or it... or have heard about the progress. This way we can show off all of our work! Plus working on a house with kids & a full time job has left our social lives a little lacking... maybe Ill throw a weekly party for a while!

can we talk about what people bring to your party? =)

I'm rounding the corner on my 31st birthday and I just bought my first home. I'm single, never married, not even close, and have been encouraged to have a house warming party. AND I've been encouraged to even REGISTER for gifts. The way I look at it, today mortgages last longer than marriages.

I've moved in and out of apartments and houses since college, and it never occurred to me to have a house-warming. This past August, my boyfriend and I bought our first house together, and mostly at the suggestion of family, we hosted a house-warming party a month after we moved in. We didn't register or ask for gifts, but of course they came. I wouldn't think of having such a party if we were to buy a new house someday, but there is something about "the first one" that makes it special and worth hosting your friends and family for.

And like a previous commenter is hoping, our family came earlier in the day and it turned into a party for us and our friends later that night. We made it worth it too - lots of food and drinks for our guests.

downtowncook-- I LOVE the idea of a house cooling party!! We are about to move and I've been trying to figure out our house warming situation (before boxes are unpacked-- no chance to have things broken? once everything is perfect-- which will never happen?). We might just have a house cooling and hold off until our new place is at least presentable. That way, friends won't feel left out that we haven't invited them all over to the new place yet.

We just moved and we're thinking of having a housewarming party soon -- and if we do, we'll do it as a potluck and tell people to NOT bring gifts other than consumeables. Many of our friends are great cooks, so it'll be a feast -- and we're not just starting out so we don't need toasters 'n' towels.

Foreclosure parties seem to be all the rage now. Didn't you know? ;-D

I'm 30, bought my 1st house about 1 year ago and 3 months after I bought the house threw a housewarming party. It wasn't really about gifts and more people brought wine than anything else. I just wanted to invite all my friends over to see my new house and I waited to throw it so that I could get most of the painting and decorating done. I plan on making that party, which I provided a low country boil, an annual event for all my friends to get together.

My boyfriend and I are in the process of purchasing (come on appraisal!!!) our first home, and we're going to have a HOLYSH!TWEJUSTBOUGHTAHOUSE type party. I like the idea of it being a "before" party, because ours will most likely coincide with Boyfriend's birthday and we figured we'd just do an open house - come over any time - if there is even anything in the house yet it'll still be in boxes so don't expect much other than to see our new place omgsoexcited - type party. So decorated the way we want it certainly will not be.
We'll have smaller groups of friends over later for more intimate gatherings, this is just a great way to have all the looky loos and third degree friends over at once so they can say they've seen it without us actually having to "host" them.
We certainly do NOT expect gifts as we have nearly everything we could need - but most of the time people bring a bottle of something, but isn't that true with most parties?

We moved into our new home over the summer, however it was under serious renovation until just now.
We plan to have a housewarming party around June. We want everything to be all decorated and beautiful before we have everyone over.

Yep! We have one and have been to a bunch. They're really fun before all the "stuff" gets unpacked--you can solicit lots of decorating advise. One of our friends went to one where the hostess handed each guest a post-it pad and asked them to write decorating ideas and post them around the house--i.e. "This window needs a Roman shade."

We moved into our first house in October and were planning on having a big party, but it hasn't happened. I don't ever feel ready to plan it because I think I'll complete one more project and that turns into 10. Also, I realized that I HATE huge parties like that. I prefer to just have a few friends over at a time. If my husband wants to do it, he can plan it.

Like many of the responses, I just turned 30 in January and bought my first condo in December. I have yet to have an official housewarming or really have many folks over beyond super close friends and the group from church I host every other week. I'm not married, so no one has ever spent hundreds or even thousands celebrating my wedding or baby or anything like that (like I have on most of my friends), so is it all that much to have a housewarming, even if people feel they at least need to bring a bottle of wine to acknowledge this big endeavor? I also feel weird about it and want the place to be perfect. It's not yet perfect. My last apartment was featured here on AT, so I have a reputation to live up to! I'm enjoying reading everyone's comments on this as it's something I've given a lot of thought to! Maybe I best get to work on painting and decorating so I can have one soon!!

I think housewarming parties are appropriate ONLY for those who have PURCHASED a house (that is, if we're thinking of the traditional: come-see-my-house-and-bring-a-gift type party)

I just moved in to a house I purchased at the first of the year. The number of times I am asked, "when's the housewarming party?" exceeds the number of times I signed my name on the mortgage paper work... too many to count. Usually I smile and think to myself:

1) I can't possibly ask people to come to a party that is designed to celebrate me living in a new house.

2) My house will never be "done" (i.e., decorated and my "perfect") in time for a party to be near my move in date.

3) where there's a party, there are drinks and food. where there are drinks and food, there are spills, stains and days of clean up. Forgive me if this sounds shallow, but I worked too long and hard and have spent too much money on this little place I call home to have it messed up in one night!

Basically, I'd rather show friends a little at a time. If they bring gifts, I know it will be out of want not obligation. While I don't judge throwers of house warming parties, I don't think they're my style.

I like the idea of the before party. I will be buying/moving into a new house in the not too distant future (hopefully). My previous house never got to a 'done' state so if I wait for that, I'll never have anyone over. Personally, I'm not sure how I feel about a housewarming party because I don't know who to invite. Do you invite people you haven't spoken to in a few years? Or coworkers, and if so, how big of your circle do you go? Is it sad that I'm almost 30 and haven't hosted a party at my home like ever?

I'm all about any type of party. I bought a small row house in DC last July and it's still being renovated. (Long, long story). I'm so thankful to everyone near and far who has listened to me vent or asked about it's progress. I finally have a great contractor now, and am planning on throwing a big party in my tiny home this summer. The invite will specify no gifts. I just want to have a good time with the people I love and have my home warmed with some much need good energy!

We moved into our new place in mid-September and had one of our best parties ever about a month later. It was a mid-day, pot luck, come and hang out kind of event. We basically just invited everyone we know and about 50 people came and stayed almost the whole time. It really made our new place feel like a home and put my mind at ease that none of our friends would come over to our new house which is slightly outside the city. People who wanted to give us trinkets did, but most didn't. Making it a potluck makes people feel like bringing a bottle of wine is perfectly acceptable, which it IS!

How sad that some folks don't want to have friends over because they fear their friends will mess up their new place. Trashing someone's new home is not very nice or respectful. I'd hope their friends would behave like friends, (and grown-ups) when invited to a housewarming party.

I've been in my loft 3 months and I'm throwing one in a few weeks. It's a birthday/housewarming party, but I told my guests kindly to not bring gifts. Looking forwarded to showing my place, getting a few pointers, and throwing back a few with my favorite people!