In the Western Isles of Scotland, multi-generational get-togethers are the norm. Anyone and everyone attends, sitting on the floor if all the chairs are taken. The evening is a mix of singing (in Gaelic usually) party-piece recitation by the children, long tales of the past by the old folk and plenty of simple but tasty food. And the essential ingredient - whiskey passed around from hand to hand. I heard some of these events in the flat above my room in Glasgow where I lived among lassies from Skye and Lewis. They always spoke in Gaelic, and had superb evenings where odd old men, lonely lassies and drunken lads would turn up, people from the Hebrides, and pass the evening like this. I suppose on a bleak chilly and windy island, it's a good way to be cheered up.
Don't you find that the trend for ghastly ear-splitting music kills any attempt at 'socialising' at parties? I just can't follow what someone's saying if they have to scream the words in my ear.