Greetings from Gstaad

Like most seasonal events, holiday parties exist on a continuum. There are casual one-bedroom-apartment-style festivities, with chips and dip and spiked punch in Solo cups. A classic six on the Upper East Side, outfitted in a forest’s worth of locally-sourced pine, might proffer caviar and coupes of Krug. And then there’s the annual gathering thrown by ASMALLWORLD, the members-only travel and social club. This past weekend, the networking organization hosted, along with sponsor Jimmy Choo, 300 of its dearest friends at the Gstaad Palace Hotel and Grand Hotel Park in Switzerland for a bacchanal of boozing, skiing and Instagram-worthy frolicking. Instead of mulled wine sipped to a Spotify Christmas carol playlist, there were welcoming fireside aperitifs to the tune of a Hungarian gypsy band. Ugly sweater bonding was replaced by group skiing down Wasserngrat Mountain, a hilltop fondue luncheon with a soundtrack of live alphorn players, a Parmigiani hot air balloon ride and trips down snowy peaks on bespoke Jimmy Choo gold sledges. Things wrapped up with a black tie gala whose special guest was Adrien Brody and whose beneficiary, via the ASMALLWORLD Foundation, was the charity The Amal Project, which helps child refugees in Jordan. Good cheer and good will in one luxurious package? Who could resist.