Holiday parties tend to consist of sweet treats, alcohol and gift exchanging, adding to the stress connected to the season. With so much excess of food, drinking and material items, the essence of gathering to just be with one another gets lost. Keeping with the traditional idea of a holiday party, invite your close friends over for an evening to reconnect, however, emphasize the simplicity of the gathering with one of these three ideas.

You may use as many or few of these ideas to create your evening together just remember to keep it simple. Keep in mind what the vibe of the group is— you may need a more relaxing gathering to just simply catch up, or your group may need something uplifting. Use your intuition to choose what would be best for your gathering.

Participate in a sound bath or kirtan workshop.
If your meditation or yoga practice has been suffering because of all the holiday gatherings, traveling and time spent shopping for gifts, a sound bath or kirtan workshop can restore your connection to your practice. Find a local yoga studio and give them a call. Ask if any of their teachers are trained in these types of events. Most likely, there will be someone who would love to come host a private workshop at your home. Then you can gather a group of friends for a healing evening of relaxation and singing. Having a teacher come to your home also allows you and your guests to try something new without feeling out of place. Treating a few guest to this also acts as a great alternative to buying them a material item.

Have a tea party
Tea is healing, soothing and calming. If you’re in need of a relaxing night with your group of friends, invite them over for tea—and only tea. Make a batch of masala chai tea, and allow it to act as both a dessert and beverage for your guests, eliminating the need for excess food and time spent shopping, preparing food and cleaning up. This will drive the focus around intimate conversation and catching up with each other as you enjoy just being in each other’s presence.

Bake and give back
Baking cookies is likely part of everyone’s traditional holiday season. Instead of doing the shopping, baking and cleaning up by yourself and then indulging in excessive amounts of sugar, share the experience with a group and donate the cookies, cupcakes or brownies to your local soup kitchen. Divide the ingredients among the guests and have each of them bring one or two items. Then spend the evening enjoying each other’s company, making the dough and cutting the cookies together. With the theme of the night being giving to those in need, there’s no pressure to give each other gifts. Plus you can all nibble on a few cookies when they’re done cooking, so you don’t have to worry about preparing other snacks.

Have other ideas for a mindful gathering? Share with us in the comments or take a picture and tag us on Instagram @Energymuse. We would love to see how everyone spends their holidays!