How to throw a house party in the United States.

This is a subject that I consider myself quite an authority on. This video will

talk about how to throw a fun party in the United States. I have thrown many

successful parties in my time and it’s something that I’m actually rather proud of.

Some people really can take pride on how good they are at throwing parties. I will

also be giving a tour of my house so that you can see how one can use different

elements of their house to successfully throw a party that people will be talking

about for years afterwards. So…Lets party.

If there is one thing that you should know about Americans, it’s that we like

to party. We will find any reason to throw a party. Many common themes are

holidays like Christmas, Halloween, New Years, Cinco De Mayo, The Fourth of July,

Memorial Day, and Thanksgiving to name a few. People will often throw parties at

their house to celebrate their birthday. They may be celebrating an

accomplishment or promotion at work. Sometimes, we will just throw a party for

the sake of throwing a party. We can turn out to be a pretty rowdy group of

people when we are really having a good time at a party. Parties can get

unpredictable when people are really drunk and everybody is surrounded by

friends and loud music. In many ways, Americans are hoping to create stories and

memories when they attend parties. As you know, Americans are more free

spirited than many other cultures so you really never know what might come up

in the mind of a drunk American.

Cinco De Mayo is Spanish for the 5th of May. It is the day that Mexico

declared its independence from Spain and people often use this day as a reason

to enjoy margaritas and celebrate Mexican culture. People will often indulge in

Mexican food and music.

The 4th of July is the day that The United States declared its independence

from England. On this day there will be plenty of drinking and American Spirit.

You should expect many people clad in patriotic clothes and American Flags flying

all over the place. This holiday is known for it’s fireworks displays across the

country. Many people also enjoy a lot of barbeque on this day.

And Memorial Day is a day to remember and pay homage to all members of

our military that currently serve and those who have died in American Wars.

People will often do their best to enjoy time next to a lake and, if they have one,

will take their boat out onto the lake.

Of course, all of these events will have alcohol present.

So, how does one go about throwing house parties in the United States?

Well, the first thing you will have to do is go about inviting people. Technology

has given us a lot of different avenues to do this. Among all of them, of course, is

using your phone to call or text somebody. People may also send mass texts out

to get the message out to many people quickly. Very commonly, people will use

Facebook to create invites and send an invite out to their Facebook friends. If the

event is more formal, like a baby shower or engagement party, people may

actually send paper mail to individual addresses. Much more commonly though, a

call or Facebook invite is just fine. In that case, give people invitations at least 2

weeks before the party!

Whenever you throw a party you will want to have as many people show

up as possible. In my opinion, a successful party will at the very least have 20

people show up. The more people you can get over, the more successful the party

is likely to be. This is a general statement though. If you were to have a dinner

party for instance, the guest list would be very specific and probably no more

than 10-14 people. For informal parties, the more the better.

The two most important elements of any party are alcohol and music. A

good idea I like to do is create a playlist of songs that will span for about 3-4 hours

and full of songs that are fun to listen to and upbeat. The playlist choice of course

will be completely up to you, but I would recommend that you make a playlist

keeping your guests in mind. You will know your guests better than I can, so you

should make your selections based on your guest list. I’m sure it’s no surprise

though that you will be able to tell a vast difference in a party that doesn’t have

music of bad music. Music is the soundtrack you’re your party and it can really get

people in good spirits if the playlist is in good taste. Personally, I would choose to

play upbeat rock music. But I cater to the general culture so I would most likely

choose a playlist of the current popular songs which are usually rap, pop, and R &

B.

Alcohol, of course, is key. The alcohol choice can be a little more in your

control as a host. If you just want to get a keg of beer sometimes that will suffice.

But your alcohol supply should be in line with how many people you expect to

have over. I would say that for every 25-30 people, you should have a keg of beer.

A keg of beer is about 59 liters of beer. You may think that is a lot but Americans

usually have a much higher alcohol tolerance that most Japanese people so the

supply could easily dwindle. A Keg of beer is usually about $90-110 so you can see

how parties can get expensive. Kegs are not the only option though. You can buy

many beers or it’s not uncommon at all for people to throw BYOB parties, which

stands for bring your own beer. If you throw that kind of party your guests will be

expected to bring beer with them. Any alcohol is appropriate for any kind of party.

Another option, of course is to buy some liquor and get some drunk to mix it with.

The most versatile liquor appears to be vodka, therefore vodka is generally the

most common type of liquor to be found at a party. A really good party will have a

variety of alcohol. I would prefer to have whiskey and gin available but more

often than not I don’t have that present unless I really want to make sure that I

get drunk. Most people aren’t interested in that type of alcohol. However, if it’s

there, and people are drunk enough, they will begin to drink anything.

Although, it is less common, food can also be served at a party. Your drunk

guests will really appreciate something to munch on to further enjoy a party, but

it is not a necessary part of any American party. It really depends on how

successful you want your party to be. Many types of foods available at these

parties include popcorn, chips and dip, chicken wings, small sandwiches, or even

meat, cheese and cracker plates. If you have seen my how to enjoy sports video,

you’ll notice that many of these types of foods are the same ones you can expect

to find at a sports watching party. But when it comes down to it, the food you

choose to serve should always be whatever you think might be best.

The last element to throwing a successful party should be to have games

available. Most of the time the games we play will be centered on drinking.

Therefore these games have been dubbed Drinking games. By far, the most

popular game played by party goers today is known as beer pong. If you have

never heard of beer pong, it’s a wildy fun game where the players will take turns

throwing ping pong balls into cups filled with beer. Whenever a player

successfully makes a shot, the other team has to take whatever cup they hit and

drink the beer inside of it. This definitely will contribute to ones level of

drunkenness. There are also various card games that involve drinking as well. Flip

cup is also a very fun relay game that people form teams to play. It’s also a great

way to get to know someone that you would like to meet at a party.

The next thing I will mention is something that I think as a Japanese host

you will be frustrated by, but it’s a part of American culture nonetheless. Your

guests will arrive whenever they feel like it. Because of this it may take a while to

really get the party started. If you tell your guests that your party starts at nine,

some will begin to arrive at that time. But many people will wait until they know a

lot of people are there. As a policy some people may show up an hour or two

hours late. So you shouldn’t expect things to really liven up until 11:00 if you

throw your party at nine. Personally, I think it’s a really annoying facet of

American society, but it’s what we as a culture choose to do. I know that Japanese

value punctuality very much so if you try to throw a party in the states, please do

not get angry or frustrated that a solid percentage of your guests will show up

late.

OK, from here I’m going to give you a tour of my house and give you an idea of

how I would go about throwing a party. My house happens to have a really good

lay out for throwing good parties so this will be a very good representation of

what you should expect if you were to attend an American Party.

(from here I’m going to just give a short tour and describe the different things in

my house)

Ok, now you know how you can throw a successful party in the States. I hope you

can enjoy this video and feel welcome inside my house. Thanks for watching!

Arigato Gozaimasu!