I threw a dinner party to avoid spending money on holiday gifts for friends. Now, it's my annual tradition.

• Since I have a lot of friends, buying them all gifts got expensive, so I threw a dinner party.
• It was a lot of work, but I loved bringing everyone together to celebrate the year.
• Now it's my annual tradition, and it's the perfect blend of gift-giving and acts of service.

In 2018, I considered my army of close friends a blessing — until December rolled around. Suddenly, these friendships came with an overhead I couldn't afford, just for the sake of tradition.

Dozens of women who considered me their gay best friend sounded great until it was time to exchange presents with all of them during the holidays. I was too cheap to buy all my friends expensive Christmas gifts but too classy to give them something, well, cheap. I had also grown tired of spending $50 on something pointless in bulk, usually a criminally overpriced novelty item.

So I came up with a better idea: I threw a holiday dinner party instead. It eventually became my preferred love language — no matter the occasion.

That first dinner party was better than any gift I could've bought at a store

From prepping to hosting, throwing a dinner party for a large group was more work than I expected. But I loved every second of it.

That first time, I made about 100 empanadas in five flavors and 100 chocolate-covered strawberries. Still, I thought of it as a labor of love.

There was nothing quite like the rush of concocting a culinary feast from scratch, the dopamine hit I got from each beloved guest I bear hugged hello, and the humble joy of my speech.

But most of all, I loved introducing strangers, watching them banter, and then exchanging socials — like little seeds that could grow into anything and everything.

I probably ended up spending as much on food, alcohol, and decorations as I would have on gifts, but all the thank-yous at the end of the night felt so much more satisfying.

I didn't expect throwing dinner parties to become such an integral part of who I am

Although it started as a way to try to save money, dinner parties have evolved into my preferred way of showing people I care about them.

Sure, every time I plan one, you might hear me list a million things I need to do in agony, but I'm suffering with a smile.

This year, I decided to gather my friends to celebrate all our collective milestones. I felt like a fraud having the food catered in Miami, rather than making it myself, but the guest count seems to increase each year. My guilt quickly faded once I was able to relax, take my time decorating, and get ready.

As the guest list continues to grow ( this year, I hosted 30 people), dinner parties become increasingly more difficult, but it's always worth it.

For me, hosting a dinner party falls perfectly in the middle between a gift and an act of service.

Most of all, these kinds of intimate parties seem to freeze time in a way that lets you take in where each attendee is in their life and feel the blessing of how far we've all come.