The System for Building a Life Around Gatherings (Not Just Occasions) with Tia Goff

Julie Fried (00:00.216)
Today’s system tip, wanna seem like the kind of person who has their life together? Start casually saying things like, We host club on Thursdays. There are some people who host because they feel obligated to. And then there are people like today’s guest, people who make gatherings feel like part of the rhythm of life itself. Tia Goff is a content creator and hosting lover inspired by creating inclusive and fun spaces for people to gather.

She hosts casual open house style coffee shops to an extravagant 50 plus person holiday costume party, and she documents it all on social media from the prep through the execution. So today we’re talking about the systems behind that life. This isn’t an episode about throwing perfect parties or becoming a Pinterest hostess overnight. It’s about building sustainable rhythms of connection, about creating traditions people can count on and learning how to host in a way that adds life instead of drains it.

And yes, we’re also gonna talk about the practical side, menus, prep timelines, reusable formats, go to hosting tricks, and all the little systems that make it feel doable. Welcome, Tia.

Tia Goff (01:06.591)
Yay. I’m so excited to be here, Julie. I’m so excited to chat about my favorite thing, hosting.

Julie Fried (01:11.478)
Tia was previously on the podcast in season one talking about how she uses Asana as her business brain. And this time it’s just a total lifestyle episode. I’m so excited for this. All right, we’re gonna start as we Yeah. We’re gonna start as we always do with the system reboot, a quick reset to start our episode with some humor and humanity. If you could attend a dinner party at any fictional house, where are you going?

Tia Goff (01:22.197)
This is gonna be good.

Tia Goff (01:36.211)
Mm.

Tia Goff (01:43.541)
Have you ever watched Parenthood? It’s an oldie but a goodie?

Julie Fried (01:46.334)
I I know the show, I haven’t watched it.

Tia Goff (01:49.383)
Yeah, it’s an oldie but a goodie. I’d say that I would go to that main household. it’d be a whole lot of different energy. It’s a it’s a large family. They like it’s they focus on like multi-generational family. I’d be in their main household and it’d just be they do a little weekly dinner, it’d be a little chaotic, it’d be a little fun, I could kind of be an observer.

Julie Fried (02:10.989)
Aww. Alright, what childhood obsession are you still not over?

Tia Goff (02:16.989)
Mac and cheese.

Julie Fried (02:18.965)
God, delicious. Yes, great choice.

Tia Goff (02:20.106)
Can’t give it up. Just a a craft mac and cheese once a week. I cannot give that up, and it will continue.

Julie Fried (02:24.961)
You never have to give that up. Never. All right, besides what you do for a living, what is a job you think you’d be incredible at?

Tia Goff (02:33.878)
I would love so with hosting, probably me my second favorite hobby is women’s basketball. And I would love to be able to edit their hype reels at the beginning. Like a little sizzle reel. Yes. I’m so sorry, Julie. Can you hear my dog?

Julie Fried (02:43.885)
I love that.

Julie Fried (02:49.195)
I totally can, but that’s okay. The dog’s V just wants to be invited to the party.

Tia Goff (02:52.158)
Hold please, can’t literally. Bella’s like, hold on, we’re welcoming people into our home. This is chaotic. We’ve got a storm going on. Let’s add a little chaos.

Tia Goff (03:05.396)
There we go.

Julie Fried (03:05.611)
Alright everyone, you’ve met the personality. Now meet the powerhouse. Here’s my conversation with Tia on the system for building a life around gatherings, not just occasions.

And I think a lot of people treat hosting as something reserved for just like birthdays, holidays, big milestones, but you have really built gatherings into the rhythm of your everyday life. When did hosting shift from like special occasion territory into something that just became a part of how you live?

Tia Goff (03:37.011)
Yeah, so I think this is twofold. Number one, my husband Cameron and I have been regularly hosting for about eight years now. So straddling COVID, but I would say we have built it into our lives for about eight years. That’s important to note because we are about to celebrate our 10-year wedding anniversary. And so there’s kind of a gap in between there where we do not have any children. a lot of our friends have waited to have children. So a lot of those like life milestones have not been happening during that time.

So that means that we were just looking for like an excessive way to celebrate friendship and to celebrate life and to celebrate like meeting new people. It wasn’t necessarily like, hey, there are loads upon loads of baby showers, so we’re gonna host those baby showers. Am I hosting baby showers? Yes, I love being the go-to person for that. But it’s not that that was like the need in our life. We also found ourselves in that time period, at the beginning of that time period,

Julie Fried (04:20.141)
Ha

Tia Goff (04:28.67)
Where we had been a ways out of college, we were growing up, our friends were moving away, and we found ourselves at kind of a crossroads where we had a lot of people that we loved in our lives, but not a lot of people that were in the same friend group. So that made just like life kind of hard. We were getting invited to things, but it felt weird of like we would have to bring together multiple friend groups or multiple kind of couples or individuals in order to like have a group hang. So that’s what we did.

Julie Fried (04:44.565)
Yeah.

Tia Goff (04:54.984)
We created that. and I would say that our the majority of our friends, for example, our ten year wedding anniversary, we’re going to Italy and we’re hosting what we’re calling our best party yet. we have fifty people attending. Yeah. We are so excited.

Julie Fried (05:07.307)
I literally I literally cannot wait like to see it all unfold. I mean, guys, their s their proposal was in People magazine. I will link it.

Tia Goff (05:14.792)
Yes, yes. We love to do things for the bit. And so those fifty people really come from all different walks of life and most of them from our adult friendships. And so that our hosting became the place where we could bring all those people together versus a celebration of a certain life milestone. It was just an inclusion aspect.

Julie Fried (05:36.247)
I love that. Do you think that that people, especially now, are really just craving like craving more of this? Like more in person connection, more traditions, more reasons together.

Tia Goff (05:47.795)
Absolutely. So I think it’s this is also twofold. It’s the post-COVID, right? That people were isolated. People kind of had like a pause in their friendship development in a lot of cases. They weren’t on like this natural trajectory of like we’re strengthening friendships or we’re just like regularly seeing people for these milestone type things. People were away from each other. So now they want to come back together. I also think that people are craving whimsy in general. And I

Julie Fried (05:59.085)
Yeah.

Julie Fried (06:14.516)
Yes.

Tia Goff (06:15.754)
I like to say that a lot of my hosting is inspired by whimsy. Like I love doing things for the bit. Like our our we got re-engaged is what Julia’s talking about. Yeah. That’s yes. Absolutely. I love an extra moment. I love just like making an excuse for something, dressing up, making something themed, because I think people in community are craving that just kind of extraness.

Julie Fried (06:23.701)
I live for that. You you and I are so that’s why I send you party ideas all the time that I see that I’m like, Tia would love this.

Julie Fried (06:41.613)
And I think sometimes people also just want permission to not like be a buttoned up adult and you give them that. And that’s really nice.

Tia Goff (06:47.794)
Absolutely. Absolutely. I think the biggest indicator of that is Julie, you were talking about our fifty person holiday costume party. Our first couple years that we hosted that, first of all, why are we having a Christmas party that is costumed? Who knows? It’s just an excuse. But our first couple years, costumes were like mediocre. They were kind of chilling. And now

Julie Fried (06:59.479)
Mm-hmm.

Julie Fried (07:06.775)
Yeah.

Tia Goff (07:14.898)
eight years into that holiday party, the costumes people craft for a month leading up to it because they want the excuse to have something like that. They’re just excited to like add that extra layer to their life of like, wow, we have something to look forward to. We have something to kind of take up a notch and we have something to like integrate into our life that is reoccurring, has tradition, and has like a reunion type feel to it.

Julie Fried (07:21.485)
I love that.

Julie Fried (07:38.518)
I think a reason that people kind of avoid hosting is because they approach every gathering like it’s this completely new production. I know that that’s part of it for me, but you have proven the opposite because you literally hosted seven dinner parties in seven days. So please explain that premise. How did that even happen?

Tia Goff (08:01.29)
Okay, that is actually the prime example of just doing something for the bit. so how this originally came about is Cam and I like to say that there are kind of like four categories to party hosting. I think that every party needs this, but when you break it down into buckets, I don’t think you need to focus on all four. So it’s food and then drinks and then activities and decor. I think every party needs activities, whether those are like full out activities or those are chill activities.

Activities. Everything needs an agenda. People need to know what to expect. So that said, most of our parties rely really heavily on decor and activities. That’s what’s really fun for us. Drinks, yeah, they’ll always be there. Food, no, we are not good cooks, or we could be good cooks, I think. I think everybody probably could be to some degree. Exactly. That’s not something that we’re going to like thrive by doing.

Julie Fried (08:46.209)
But it’s not where you want to put your energy.

Julie Fried (08:52.243)
I think that I’m like a good cook. Like I can put out like some tasty food, but like it’s gonna look pretty gross. Like I will n I can never be on top I mean, I can there’s a lot of reasons I couldn’t be on top chef. But like the main reason I think is because I look at their food and I’m like, I could never plate that ’cause by the time I get to the end of it, I’m like, ugh, I could just throw it on the plate. Who even cares?

Tia Goff (09:15.402)
Absolutely valid. I I’m not good at any portion of that. So then that became why we wanted to do seven dinner parties in seven days. We wanted to get better at cooking. We wanted to get better at the hosting part of cooking, like the timing it out, the light plating, I would say. We definitely did not get extravagant, but the like kind of flow of like, okay, Cam is finishing this up while I bring this piece out. Okay, now I’m bringing this piece out and collecting the plates.

Julie Fried (09:20.705)
Yeah.

Julie Fried (09:32.999)
Ha ha

Tia Goff (09:43.026)
All of that we had no experience in. And so we wanted to create a challenge for ourselves. And so that’s why we did the seven dinner parties in seven days, plus the bit of it, just the extra whimsy that that added to our lives.

Julie Fried (09:55.052)
What did that experiment teach you about hosting sustainably?

Tia Goff (09:59.529)
Okay, it was insane. I will say hosting sustainably, I would not recommend doing this. It was not sustainable. We were not working this week. I will also say we like not at all. We did not do any other work because we are were also trying to post live, or we weren’t trying to, we did. We would post the next morning from the day before that, and that added a lot of workload to it. I will also say we have a personal assistant that works five hours a week.

For us, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but it is literally game changing. I

Julie Fried (10:33.588)
the right person can do so much in five hours. Yeah.

Tia Goff (10:36.112)
It is crazy. She does all of our like weekly rhythms. And then anytime that we’re hosting, she supports a lot of it. So like in our seven dinner parties in seven days, she was there four of those days. and just helping us clean up, helping us throw linens in the washer, helping us pull new decor up and having support in that was absolutely needed. But again, doing seven dinner parties in seven days is not something that I think many of us will be doing, and I wouldn’t

Julie Fried (11:03.307)
Yeah.

Tia Goff (11:04.158)
I would not recommend unless you were really excited about the whimsy of it.

Julie Fried (11:09.543)
I imagine that by day four or five, perfection probably stops being the goal if it was ever even part of the goal. Like did it completely change your perspective on what people actually care about when they come over?

Tia Goff (11:24.2)
Yes, absolutely. So it was really really, really cool and you’re hitting the nail on the head about like we got really great data that we will never get again. Because even though we host regularly per se, if I host a party one year, like I host Galantines, I host it once a year, right? So I get data from that.

one February date and then I have to apply it the next February. It’s not as applicable. It has different variables to right. Seven dinner parties, we are making real-time decisions about like, hey, this didn’t really work the way that we plated it. Hey, we should do this. Hey, we should make sure to tell them this as we come from our cocktail our to our dinner and where we’re seating. Things like that. You got like really good data, including what really mattered, exactly what you’re saying, about like I think the flow of a dinner party matters way more than anything else. I think also us

Julie Fried (11:49.323)
Yeah.

Tia Goff (12:13.726)
We had ourselves and then six other people at each dinner party, brand new people every single time. that the seating chart really mattered and us taking a breath and stepping back socially and allowing them to dictate the conversation versus us having any any ownership in that was also really, really important.

Julie Fried (12:18.253)
Mm.

Julie Fried (12:24.066)
Yeah.

Julie Fried (12:33.291)
What are the repeatable formats for a gathering that you come back to over and over again?

Tia Goff (12:39.658)
Okay, so this this is a tricky one because I do think if I were recommending someone to host their first thing, I would recommend that you find your thing and you do it annually or you do it two times a year. because there is workload involved in so many pieces of it. And again, you’re kind of choosing what you’re gonna do. But for me, when decor and activities is something that I love to have all my events really centered on, you do have to gather some decor.

There’s a buy-in to that. There’s a financial aspect that’s involved, right? Probably no matter what. No matter whether you’re doing it pretty bare bones, or in my case, I do love to do that part pretty full out. Also, like little things like signage or like invites, having templates for those adds up very quickly in the efficiency of your event. And so A, I love to

Gather decor very affordably and I love to keep it and I love to organize it in my basement and all sorts of Tupperwares that are labeled for all I love to hang things on the ceiling. We have a very like new build white home. And so sealing things make a huge impact. that means that I am constantly scouring Facebook Marketplace. That is my biggest tip. I know that that’s not a new tip about Facebook Marketplace, but hosting things on Facebook Marketplace, people sell them for so cheap because.

Or for very, very affordable pricing because they don’t have another use case for them. Whereas you, if you have space to hold on to things, especially like small things like streamers or things, people will get rid of entire party loads from so-and-so’s second birthday. You can take that and that can be your annual, you know, Galantine’s decor. So holding on to decor, holding on to templates for like signage, I love to just thrift frames and I hold on to those and I then print out the same exact template.

Julie Fried (14:22.261)
Ooh.

Tia Goff (14:26.214)
every year just with little color palette tweaks or font tweaks. I know exactly what size I’m gonna do because it goes in my frames and I put that out for all my drink signage, all my food signage, any activity signage. but yeah Facebook Marketplace thrifting frames so that you have signage like that. I will also I have a couple sets of little you know like foldable title cards for exactly thank you. Yes, yes, yes, yes. that like one

Julie Fried (14:49.677)
Like tent cards. Yeah.

Tia Goff (14:54.694)
One set is chalk. one set has little like dry erase markers, keeping those on hand to have those really quickly, and that’s a very low buy-in. that helps a lot. Yeah, I think if you have space to hold on to things, there will be a slight buy into hosting, but then you can hold on to those and you can use those for eternity.

Julie Fried (15:16.417)
I think that so much about hosting well, especially i through this conversation, has come down to just reducing that decision fatigue and having those like shortcuts and defaults. but I wanna get into the actual like mechanics behind all this. How far in advance are you usually planning gatherings?

Tia Goff (15:38.165)
So there are, I’d say, four main things that we host every single year that we’ve kind of touched on. Our Christmas party, I host a Galantine’s party for just my ladies every year. And then we host seasonal, our last name is Gough, G-O-F-F. So we call it Golf Shop, which is an open house day. it’s so fun. Also, our Christmas party is called Goth Miss. So that said, everyone

Julie Fried (16:03.021)
Truly, one of the biggest bummers in my life is that like I’m not your neighbor. Like, not even in the same state. Truly such a bummer.

Tia Goff (16:06.844)
I know, I know. It would be so fun. It would be such a hoot. But we host those every single year. so for those at this point in our hosting journey, people are planning for them. They are working their lives around them, especially our holiday party. If anyone’s looking to plan a holiday party, it’s a tricky time of year to plan. You’re gonna not have a huge chunk of people that can can’t attend because there’s just so many family things going on.

Julie Fried (16:31.041)
That’s yeah. I did I hosted a Chris Maka party for I think I did it for twelve years and it was always, always, always on December twenty third. Like it never varied no matter what day of the week, that’s what it was. Yeah.

Tia Goff (16:35.009)
Cute.

Wow.

Tia Goff (16:41.482)
Okay.

Tia Goff (16:45.226)
See, that’s so lovely. You laid stake, like you have claim on that day. That is so perfect. All of our major events like that, I am sending out a save the date text or like I often use invites, which is the Apple app for invitations. It’s digital. it’s really nice. it’s so nice. It’s very convenient. people just use their iCloud to be able to RSVP.

Julie Fried (16:50.583)
Yeah.

Julie Fried (17:07.563)
I like people I mean obviously paper post, evite things things are out there, but I really like party f partiful. Partyful. Yeah, it’s I feel like it’s caught on most for like my mom friends and stuff and so I get it for all like the little kids like birthday parties and stuff. And I think it’s like s just super user friendly.

Tia Goff (17:14.578)
I love it too. Mm-hmm.

Tia Goff (17:28.382)
Totally, which is so cute. And I used to always use Paperless Post, which I feel like is a similar competitor, which I also think is so cute. And then for these reoccurring ones, I was like, it’s not as much about the design element, it’s about the convenience element of people know this is coming already. And that’s why I use the invites and I will send out that date six months in advance. because people now at this point know that they want to save it and then I’ll do a quick reminder. like for example

Julie Fried (17:43.967)
Mm.

Julie Fried (17:50.636)
Hm.

Tia Goff (17:57.447)
Our next coffee shop is in August. I just sent it out this last week of hey, let’s check in. And that’s solely because summer’s busy. I want to just get it on people’s calendars. it is an open house format. So it’s people can come and go as they’d like in between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. We serve breakfast, we serve seasonal lattes, and we serve lunch. so people can come anytime in between there. So much more casual, but I do just like to put it there so that people g can have it. I feel like there’s no harm in sending things far in advance if they are looking forward.

Julie Fried (18:05.206)
Yeah.

Julie Fried (18:26.589)
No, definitely not. Do you keep any checklists or like notes in your phone or spreadsheets? Like what is the back end of hosting look like for you?

Tia Goff (18:27.188)
To it enough. Yeah. Totally.

Tia Goff (18:37.78)
Shout out to Asana. It’s an Asana. Absolutely. So, like my task last week came up on my Asana task list of send a reminder for August Coffee Shop. Get it on people’s invite calendar. so I will say more creative things are not in Asana. Like something that I go moral out for is our Christmas party. And so we do a lot more decor, a lot more like.

Julie Fried (18:50.88)
I love that.

Tia Goff (19:03.806)
conceptual because it’ll be a different theme every year and it’ll be different costume parties. So that said, I am more creative with that. Yes. So you know, absolutely you can get an exclusive because everybody already has the date and also has the theme. so like I said, we’re going to Italy for our vow renewal. a large majority of people at our holiday party are were invited to that and are attending that. So a play on that,

Julie Fried (19:09.409)
Do you already have the theme for this upcoming Christmas? Can I hear about it? Can we get an exclusive?

Tia Goff (19:32.854)
Is I don’t know the exact title yet. We gotta make it a little more fun, a little more roll off the tongue. But it’s gonna be like the slash your Roman Empire. So like a little nod to our Italy, plus like hopefully people will dress up, you know, as maybe the Roman Empire or as something they’re fixated on, some hobby thing. Exactly.

Julie Fried (19:43.432)
my gosh.

Julie Fried (19:54.008)
Bravo scandals. I think I would just come as Andy Cohen. I think or like Amanda Batullah’s like terrible ponytail bun. Something like that. Yeah. Yeah.

Tia Goff (19:59.221)
I would love that. With a Yes, yes, which would slay.

Julie Fried (20:09.709)
How do you how do you prep your house without feeling like you are having to deep clean for like the royal family every time someone comes over?

Tia Goff (20:18.556)
Absolutely. I think this is also a learning experience as you continue. There are things that matter in cleaning for a party and there are things that not that don’t. Having a clean bathroom, yeah, that really matters. People will be in there and it’ll be a high traffic area and they will see everything, every nook crevice, because they’ll be sitting on your toilet looking at every nook and crevice. Cleaning your baseboards in your main living area for a nighttime party, like our holiday party, it actually doesn’t matter.

Julie Fried (20:32.666)
yeah.

Julie Fried (20:38.455)
Ha ha.

Julie Fried (20:47.465)
No. You’re gonna get no ROI on that.

Tia Goff (20:48.294)
It people will not even be able to see it. Exactly. I think it is actually about ROI. in full transparency, we just have cleaners once a month. So they do more of a deep clean for us. And I just time that out to be around parties if possible. I’ll try to do the Friday before so that they can do a little extra, make sure our bathrooms are sparkly, l make sure they’re good to go. But in most cases, a lot of other things really don’t matter.

Julie Fried (21:03.094)
Nice.

Tia Goff (21:13.576)
Because people are so occupied. And I think that was like ingrained in us from our parents in like like the nineties, mom was like on it about everything needs to be clean because people are coming over. And I just really it think if

Julie Fried (21:25.503)
My mom would clean before our housekeeper came over. She still does she still does that. You know what? I guess there is for her mental health.

Tia Goff (21:28.541)
Exactly. Exactly.

Quit yeah, no ROI on that. But actually

Valid. Very valid. Okay, I get that. On the other hand, if you’re hosting an experience driven party, I don’t think that being spick and span matters.

Julie Fried (21:42.688)
Yeah.

Julie Fried (21:50.839)
How do you protect that joy of hosting that you have so that it doesn’t become stressful?

Tia Goff (21:57.503)
This I struggle with. I love, love, love the pre of hosting. I love the actual happening of hosting. The 12 hours or 24 hours before, I struggle a bit with. So this is something I’m still working on. And that’s just that I need to pre-prep things as much as possible. And if I get in a get in a

Julie Fried (22:13.461)
Mm.

Tia Goff (22:22.728)
I don’t know, frazzled section of like, wow, there are way too many things that have to happen four hours before, right? Things that have to be kept cold, things that can’t be laying out for super long, things like that. I need to nix some of them. And I struggle with that often. So as you’re planning in something like Asana or a Google Doc or just like your notes app and you like spread out everything, right? And this is like, okay, this happens 12 hours before. Okay, this can happen the day before. Push as many things far out as possible.

Push your grocery run until the Tuesday before, as long as you don’t need to have vegetables that haven’t wilted a little bit or something. Push things far, far, far. Get your liquor two weeks before. Do as much as possible. I will set up a lot of my decor that doesn’t risk like falling down. It’s sometimes three, four days in advance. So that that can be completely off the table because.

Julie Fried (22:56.185)
Yeah.

Julie Fried (23:00.002)
Yeah.

Tia Goff (23:10.44)
I get a little anxious that in that eight-hour mark where there are lots of things to be done from like hour four on. And then I lose the enjoyment of it, which this is a primary hobby for me. I should only be doing it if I’m enjoying it. I should only be doing it if it’s fun for everyone who’s around me too. so pushing things out, delegation, obviously, and just being able to like preserve your mental space of enjoying it.

Julie Fried (23:24.214)
Yeah.

Julie Fried (23:36.629)
Is there something you can recommend that makes people feel really welcomed that actually has nothing to do with like aesthetics or money?

Tia Goff (23:45.673)
Yeah. so I I love to have personal touches as much as possible. So things like One Year for Galantines. Well, Galantines is an event that’s centered on celebrating the women in my life. So most of Galantynes is stuff like this. But I very low cost things that I’ve done, I’ve done like balloons that are hanging on the ceiling, and then down the ribbons at the bottom of the ribbons, I printed out photos of each of my attendees.

Julie Fried (23:59.054)
Mm-hmm.

Tia Goff (24:11.55)
And they were just like hanging at the bottom. And I told them that this is the photo that I thought they looked most beautiful in. so it was so fun. little impactful things like that are really important, but I think even more so, as you’re going into an event, whether it’s a eight-person dinner party or it’s a large thing like our Goph Mist, Cam and I both like to sit down and be really intentional about the connections that we’re fostering at that event. So

Julie Fried (24:18.313)
I love that.

Tia Goff (24:39.124)
Things like someone who’s new, who’s never been to this 50-person party, who can we introduce them to who will be like a good shepherd to like take them around and have them be part of the games? Or new connections like, hey, this couple just moved to St. Paul, a major city by us. How can we connect them to all the other people that lived in St. Paul there? Let’s make sure to introduce them here. Or, hey, we’re putting together groups for these games. How can we make sure that this group of five people

can really integrate with each other and will have things in common, but also some things that are not. They can bring different strengths to the group. That’s where I think the intentionality of hosting makes a huge impact on your life. I think that’s when you start creating a community of people who not just are invested in each other, but like want to see each other win, want to support each other, want to be around each other in any case. and, you know,

Julie Fried (25:19.542)
Yeah.

Tia Goff (25:32.926)
Then it’s where people want to on a whim for a ten year anniversary fly to Italy because they are invested in those people.

Julie Fried (25:41.185)
One thing I really admire is that your gatherings feel really consistent, like they feel like they’re part of your actual life, like not just isolated, like doing it for the gram events. So what advice would you give to somebody who wants more community and more connection in their life but just does not know where to start?

Tia Goff (25:52.937)
Yeah.

Tia Goff (26:05.544)
Yeah, that’s a really good question. Okay. I’m gonna start with the most ideal scenario. I think the most ideal scenario is you exist, you have three good friends. Everyone is like, hey, we want to have something more recurring in our lives. Either each of those four people takes something that they’re going to host every single year, which I think is an ideal friendship lifestyle.

I have a holiday party. We have an a best friend that throws a friends giving. We have other people that host other things. So that you know that you have those things accounted for in your life and you can always look forward to that. Another scenario is if people are looking for something very low lift within that group of four, doing something like the third Thursday of every single month, we all rotate whose house we’re going to for dinner. And it’s a very lax, no expectations. We bring the spouses, we bring the kids.

We’re gonna have this two-hour hang that happens every single third Thursday of the month. Something like that can be really integrated. And I think if it’s a group effort, if it’s something where you sit down, you know, you go out to coffee with your girlfriends and we’re like, hey, we’re gonna either do plan one or we’re gonna do plan two, that becomes something that then becomes integrated in your life and it becomes a priority. I think a lot of those things, like like the Thursday dinner thing, becomes tricky if people have not all bought into it. You know, if I’m just like,

Julie Fried (27:23.906)
Yeah.

Tia Goff (27:24.808)
Come over every third Thursday and then they don’t have any stake in it. then it becomes a really easy thing to be like, we can’t really do this Thursday. We’re kind of continuing on. But if you have a group plan that’s like, we want community, we want to make this a thing, then people have buy-in, people have this like disciplined of like, hey, I know that there’s a reward in this because we have this consistently and I host next month and then so and so hosts the month after that, which I think is fun.

Julie Fried (27:53.409)
Is there one small gathering that somebody could host this month that feels approachable and low pressure you could recommend?

Tia Goff (28:01.746)
Yes, I think that the coffee shop, our open house day, is A, the easiest thing on earth to host. B, it is it’s maybe the most impactful actually. Because so here’s the format. Like I was saying, 10 to 3, people can come anytime. we do, like I was saying, provide lattes. we have two friends that are like our baristas and we made like a little coffee shop name. It’s called Cafe de Du Soleil.

Julie Fried (28:10.668)
That’s genius.

Tia Goff (28:29.446)
and it has stickers on the cups. We get we gifted them for them helping us barista. we gifted them little aprons. That’s extra. You don’t need any of that. we have another friend who got really excited about matcha and so she made matcha at our last one. But what’s important in this wait, I’m kind of getting into matcha.

Julie Fried (28:29.858)
Ha ha ha.

Julie Fried (28:45.044)
She likes eating dirt.

Hm I s I stand by my opinion. Gross, you’re eating lawn clippings.

Tia Goff (28:52.19)
I don’t know, Julie. What about lawn clippings with strawberry syrup?

Julie Fried (28:59.616)
Put that strawberry syrup in milk. Get out of here with that.

Tia Goff (29:05.002)
Very valid. I will say her matcha popped off, and there were so many matcha orders at the coffee shop, but not for you, also. some extra things that we do added is we have seating all throughout our house, just little like vignettes so that people can gather throughout. That’s why it becomes low lift. You’re not really providing activities. We spread out.

Julie Fried (29:14.41)
Okay, I love that for her then. No.

Tia Goff (29:30.539)
Puzzles, we spread out easy games, you know, like bananogram style. We’ll be at a table so that if people want to play bananograms with a little group, they can. We have coloring pages, which again, ours is seasonal, so we make seasonal lattes and then we do like coloring pages that are for that. Like last year it was I don’t know, it they’re so cute. It’s so fun. because last year we had a little free library and we had it be the grand opening of it. I like gave a speech and then we cut a ribbon and so a bunch of our

Coloring pages where about how reading is so awesome and reading fosters community and yada yada. Again, that’s me. I like to be extra with the decor with activities. But you could literally invite people in. It could be a potluck. It could be during this time. Come by however you want. Maybe you provide some salad and like a pasta salad at around lunchtime. There doesn’t need to be breakfast. Honestly, there doesn’t need to be coffee. You could just have canned drinks in a cooler. People just come in as they’d like.

It’s a free flowing. Some people are there for half hour. Some people are there for the five hours. And it is the cutest display of community ever because people reconnect with each other. People bring dogs. People bring babies. It’s just the best thing ever to just see people sprawled out enjoying. And you don’t have to provide a lot.

Julie Fried (30:48.918)
I love that, Tia. Okay, please tell everyone where they can follow along, where they can steal your hosting ideas, become jealous of your tablescapes.

Tia Goff (30:58.524)
You are the best. So you can find us at Cameron and Tia. So it’s just my husband’s first name and my last name. C-A-M-E-R-O-N-A-N-D-N-N-T-I-A. And we would love to chat with you there about any hosting ideas, anything you’re getting excited about.

Julie Fried (31:15.574)
Alright, we have talked about real life hosting systems, but now it is time for the truly important conversation. Which fictional characters would throw the best dinner parties? Number one, Emily Gilmore. Terrifying but flawless. Number two, Midge Mazel. Perfect cocktails, perfect outfit, slight emotional spiral.

Number three, Martha Stewart. Not fictional, I know, but spiritually belongs on this list. Number four, Cameron Tucker, dramatic but so committed to the theme. And finally, any Nancy Myers mom. Soup, candles, and somehow cashmere.

I loved this conversation because it reminded me that gathering doesn’t have to be rare to be meaningful. You don’t need a giant house or a perfectly styled tablescape or twelve homemade appetizers. Sometimes building community looks like inviting people over for soup and buying flowers at Trader Joe’s on the way home.

Big thank you to Tia for showing us that hosting can be less about performance and more about rhythm, small traditions, recurring moments, and creating a life where connection is built in instead of squeezed in. If you loved this episode, please send it to a friend who’s always saying, We should have people over sometime. Maybe this is their sign to finally put it on the calendar. See you next week.