• A housewarming dinner party is a wonderful way to introduce your new home to family and friends.dinner service image by Paul Heasman from Fotolia.com
  
  Introduce your new home to family and friends and get to know new neighbors by having a housewarming dinner. The dinner party can also celebrate a remodeling or addition to the existing residence. Gifts such as a bottle of wine, a gift basket, a potted plant or even home furnishings such as kitchen towels or bath soaps can be given as a welcome to the new home.
  
  

Buffet

• Settling into a new home takes time, so choosing a buffet-style dinner for the housewarming greatly reduces the work necessary for a dinner party. Keep it simple. Use a festive, colorful tablecloth and arrange the food table so guests can serve themselves from both sides. If dips or sauces are used, set out small individual bowls to use. Try baskets for dry foods such as rolls or even for salad greens, lining it with cloth napkins. Also try a variety of finger foods instead of the standard dishes. Crab wontons and skewers with bite-sized pieces of fruit, vegetables or grilled meat are popular choices. Individual desserts such as bite-sized cheese cakes or puffed pastry shells with fruit and cream go very well for buffets.
  
  

Luau

• Housewarming dinner parties in the summer months suggest luaus. Island-inspired dishes such as beef or chicken teriyaki, sushi, coconut shrimp, egg rolls, grilled pineapple slices or pork tenderloin are good basics. Follow them up with steamed rice, sugar snap peas and jícama. Dessert can be coconut sorbet with mango and lime or pecan ice cream pie with caramel sauce.
  
  

Traditional

• Traditional dinner parties don't have to be fancy. Mix and match the dinnerware with several patterns for an informal feel. If there will be more than eight guests, forego complicated food, such as individually cooked steaks. Prepare a beef or pork roast or honey-glazed ham instead. Accompany it with dishes like scalloped potatoes and lemon and parsley butter beans or glazed carrots with pine nuts and garlic-roasted potatoes. Follow with individual blueberry cobbler or triple chocolate cake topped with French vanilla ice cream.