Party in the 'hood

This coming Saturday, Tom and I are hosting a neighborhood party. It's a Hello-Goodbye party; hello to the new people on the block and goodbye to the one neighbor who is leaving. Right now, we are expecting 15-20 people and hopefully, not too many more than that. Everyone has been asked to bring an appetizer and we'll provide the drinks, some of our own appetizers and cheese/cold cut trays.

The start of this party idea was a bit rocky because I blurted out to my neighbor (who was filling me in with all the street doings, including the fact that another neighbor was moving) without thinking that we could have her going away party at our house. Worse yet, is when I was telling Tom about all the goings on in the neighborhood, I said "By the way, we're having a neighborhood party at our house on 2/6/10" Not the best way to approach it and he was a bit perturbed with me and understandably so. We have a partnership and I should treat it as so instead of a sole proprietorship.

We have really nice neighbors on our street and there have been several parties in the past hosted by others. So now it will be nice to return the favor. I like living on my street where I pretty much know the names of everyone there and nobody is really a stranger.