How to Throw a Private Family Party

1. Invite via email all your local friends and their families on your contact list two days before the party.
2. Tell them it is a swing set raising party.
3. Make it a Potluck, but promise them rootbeer floats, plus a family-sized wading pool and water games to keep the kids entertained.
   
4. Ask your friends to RSVP if they can come.
   
5. Send out a cancellation email when no one says they can make it, but ask them to save the date for the rescheduled party (give them a week and half notice this time).
6. Raise the swing set on your own.
   
7. About 5-7 days before the party, send out the official invite via email with all the details. Be sure to include that the swing set has been raised and that you are just having a party.
8. Be genuinely grateful to those who responded, even though none of them can come.
   
9. On the day of the party, clean the house and get everything ready in case any of the non-responders decide to come. (Even if no one does, you will enjoy the clean house!)
10. When no one shows up but the people who already live there, put the pizza in the oven, have dinner, and then go out and play!
    
11. Later that evening, and each evening for a week after, enjoy those rootbeer floats all to yourselves. (mmm...can't complain about that!)

OR...

1. Plan your party
2. Don't send out any invites
3. Party as planned.