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Straight Talk with Susan Lee: Party stresses fit for a king

This week Sue talks about the stresses of organising celebrations and shopping for soft furnishings

By Susan Lee

For five years straight and for reasons now lost in the mists of Prosecco, we threw a party in our house on Christmas Eve.

I know. I have no idea what we were thinking either. Because every year, for five years straight, there would be a row.

It usually hit around 3pm when the stress of organising food and drink and good times for what inevitably turned into too many people for our three-bedroom semi to accommodate became just too much. I say a row. It was more me shouting and the rest of the family waiting patiently until I burst into tears and then fetching me a gin and a mince pie.

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It was the same with the boy’s 18th and with my 50th. Even the girl’s 21st, which hit in Covid times and, being a Zoom quiz involved nobody actually being in the same room, sent my blood pressure soaring.

There’s no two ways about it - celebrations are stressful. Will people come? Will they have a nice time?

Have we got enough beer? (The answer to that one terrible Christmas Eve was no. I still burn with the shame.) So I have to feel ever so slightly sorry for King Charles, who is only a couple of weeks away from the biggest shindig of his life.

Now, I grant you he won’t be making the vol-au-vents himself or buying the wine in from Asda. But he is organiser in chief, will be the very centre of attention and if it doesn’t go well it’s all eyes on him.

For a start, I’m not sure the public are entirely bought in to a bash where we see the King being made, er, the King. It’s significant but is it worth all that pomp and ermine and a three-day weekend?

Judging by the amount of bunting and Union Jack flags still left in the shops I have an inkling that street parties to mark the big occasion are in short supply. But then I guess a lavish ceremony in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis may put some people off their salmon paste sandwiches.

Then there’s been the uphill battle to book acts for the subsequent Royal concert. So far we have some of Take That confirmed plus Lionel Ritchie and Katy Perry. Better than streaming Spotify but hardly stellar.

Then, of course, there are the House of Windsor’s family troubles. Everyone who has ever planned a party will have wondered what to do with the awkward guest; the uncle who will inevitably get drunk, the boring cousin, the flash nephew and his endless boasting about what car he’s just bought.

He might be a Monarch but poor Charles has similar lie-awake-at-night problems to chew over and then some. Will there be a fight at the buffet between William and Harry?

Will Andrew break a sweat on the dancefloor? And does Charles really have to invite all these relatives, most of whom are strangers to the phrase ‘working Royal’?

King or not, throwing a party is stress on a stick. Still, at least he won’t have to clear up the empties the day after.

One last thing...

Out on a shopping spree with my chum, we wandered into a soft furnishings store.

There were cushions and throws, duvet covers and starched napkins - the sort you see on Downton Abbey but which wouldn’t survive a second wash in our house. And then there were the draught excluders.

“Oh, this one is made of velvet,” said my mate. “And this one matches the wallpaper in your hall,” I noted, before we both agreed that priced at a tenner they were a bargain.

Then it struck me. This was the woman I used to go clubbing with, fall out of late night cabs with, laugh until I was sick with - or it might have been the Pernod - on a girls’ holiday. Now we’re enraptured by a bit of stuffed fabric designed to keep out the cold.

If our younger selves could see us now I don’t think they’d believe their eyes.

Straight Talk with Susan Lee: Party stresses fit for a king

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