New Year's Day brunch invitations, sent as one link

Brunch on January 1 is the easiest party of the holidays to host and the hardest to predict. Half your guests were out until two. Some will arrive at eleven looking fresh, some will text at ten to ask if 1 pm still counts, and two will quietly drop out. Build the invite so none of that matters.

Bringalong gives you the event in about a minute, with no account needed. Guests open the link in a phone browser, RSVP, claim a dish from your potluck list, and add the time to their calendar. You keep a private manage link with the counts on it.

Start at eleven, not at nine

An 11 am to 2 pm window suits the day. It gives guests a lie-in, gives you time to get the oven going, and still ends early enough that everyone gets an afternoon nap. If your crowd skews toward small children, 10 am works, because those households have been awake since six anyway.

Say on the invite that food goes out at a fixed time and stays out. Something like: eggs at 11:30, everything else from eleven until it runs out. That one line stops the drip of messages asking whether it is too late to come.

• 11 am to 2 pm for a mixed adult crowd.
• 10 am to 12:30 pm if several families with young kids are coming.
• 12 pm to 3 pm if most of your guests were at your party the night before.
• Hot food at a named time, cold food out for the whole window.
• An end time on the invite, so you get your afternoon back.

What to put on a brunch invite

Brunch invitations fail by being too vague. Guests cannot tell whether to eat first, whether to bring something, or whether their toddler is welcome. Six lines fix it.

Put the dish-sharing question in the invite rather than the group chat. If you want help, name the categories you need rather than asking an open question, because an open question gets you four bags of tortilla chips.

• Date, start time and end time.
• Address, plus the buzzer or parking note.
• Whether it is a full hot brunch or coffee and pastries.
• What you would like guests to bring, by category.
• Kids yes or no, and whether there is anywhere for them to play.
• Whether there is alcohol, and that there is a good alternative either way.

How much food for a brunch of twelve

Brunch appetites on January 1 are odd. People either eat nothing or eat for an hour. Cook for the second group and you will have leftovers you are happy about.

For twelve guests: two dozen eggs if you are scrambling, three slices of bacon a head, one and a half pastries a head, a loaf and a half of bread, and a kilo of potatoes for hash. Coffee is the thing people underestimate. Count two mugs per guest, which is around 24 mugs, and if you are brewing by the pot that is five or six pots across three hours.

Juice runs at about 300 ml per guest, so four litres covers twelve people with a bit left over. Make a jug of water with lemon and put it where people walk in.

• Eggs: 2 per guest for scrambled, 1 per guest in a baked dish.
• Bacon or sausage: 3 pieces per guest.
• Pastries or bagels: 1.5 per guest.
• Potatoes: 80 to 100 g per guest for hash or roasties.
• Coffee: 2 mugs per guest, brewed in batches rather than to order.
• Juice: 300 ml per guest. Water: a jug on the table at all times.

Let guests bring the parts you do not want to cook

Hot food has to come from your kitchen, because nobody can carry scrambled eggs across town. Everything else can be handed out. Ask for fruit, pastries, bread, juice, a bag of ice, or a cake, and allocate one item per household.

On Bringalong you list the items you need and guests claim them from the invite page. A claimed item shows as taken, so two people cannot both bring the same thing and nobody has to read back through forty messages to check. Export the list as a CSV on the morning if you want it on paper by the counter.

Drinks, and a decent reason to skip them

Mimosas are the default and a lot of guests will not want one. Dry January starts on the day of your brunch, and some of your guests are driving home. Have one proper non-alcoholic option that is not sparkling water: a jug of grapefruit and soda, a pot of strong tea, hot chocolate for the kids.

If you are pouring mimosas, one 750 ml bottle of sparkling wine plus one litre of juice makes about eight glasses. For twelve guests, two bottles is enough, since most people stop after one. Pour them yourself at the door and the bottle lasts twice as long.

Getting replies when nobody knows how they will feel

Send the brunch invite in mid-December, at the same time as your New Year's Eve invite or instead of it. Ask for a reply by December 29. Then accept that roughly one in six will change their answer on the morning, and shop for that: food that reheats, nothing that has to be cooked to order for an exact number.

Guests can switch from Going to Can't go on the same link without messaging you, which gets you an accurate count at nine in the morning rather than a polite lie. Notes come through too, so you see the gluten flag and the friend who is bringing a visiting cousin before you set the table.