How to host house guests and have a good time, too
They came. They ate. They drank. They talked. They laughed. They sang corny sorority songs, clean and unclean. They told stories from our college days, clean and unclean. They spent the night. And they did it all over again for four days.
A couple weekends ago, seven sorority sisters flew in from five states and swarmed the Happier Yellow House. Over the extended weekend, we reminisced and caught up on one another’s lives, which included multiple careers, 13 marriages and 22 kids, including seven stepchildren. We learned whatever happened to an assortment of college characters, including the crazy sorority sister who in the middle of the night stuffed whole rolls of toilet paper in every toilet in the sorority house for the fun of backing them up. (This did not end well.)
We drank pots of coffee on the patio, made s’mores by the firepit, cooked hamburgers on the outdoor grill, went out for Mexican food, watched the Chiefs game, took a boat ride and talked our jaws off.
In the end, the Happier Yellow House and its owners, I am happy to report, survived the stress test. And I learned a few things about entertaining and about myself.
For instance, as someone who loves to entertain, who has hosted many parties and even more house guests, I finally put my finger on one key piece often missing from my gatherings — my own good time.
More often than I would like to say, I come out the other side of these affairs feeling as if I missed all the fun. In fact, I recall several years ago, during one particularly hectic big family Christmas Eve dinner, blurting to my oldest daughter who was helping me: “Holidays are better in the abstract.” What kind of mother-daughter lesson is that?
An honest one. I bet many women agree with me. We often spend so much time focusing on everyone else’s good time, we forget about ours. As any good therapist will tell you, awareness is the first step toward change. So this time, as I headed into the seven sister sorority soirée, my new bar was to make sure everyone had a terrific time, but not at my expense. And we did.
Besides thoroughly cleaning the house, which mine needed anyway, and taking care of postponed home maintenance and decorating projects, I applied these eight tips, which made hosting the horde a lot less work and a lot more fun for all. As the holidays approach, you, too, may find these tips useful as you open your home for parties and houseguests:
• Do a bed and bath check. Before guests arrive, make sure the beds all have nice, clean sheets, respectable pillows and enough blankets. Make sure all the light bulbs in the guest rooms are working, set clocks to the right time and stock guest baths with ample towels, toiletries, fresh soap and a blow dryer.
• Show them around. Most guests don’t want to bug you with questions, so help them help themselves by showing where the linen closet is if they need extra pillows, towels or blankets, where they can find more toiletries and where to find kitchen essentials.
• Accept help. Most house guests want to pitch in, so when they offer to contribute, accept. The following words are a host’s best friend: “How can I help? What can I bring?” This is your moment. The key to enjoying your own gatherings is to not do everything yourself.
• Assign jobs. If they don’t offer, gently assign. I put various guests in charge of bringing fixings for s’mores, grab-and-go breakfast items and side dishes for burger night. Another coordinated airport runs, and all helped set and clear the table, and wash dishes.
• Provide a snack basket. Unless you want to run a 24-hour diner, tide folks over between meals by making ample snacks available. I set out a basket of granola bars and apples near the guest area. (Keep this out of your dog’s reach.) I also stocked a cooler with water bottles and other drinks and put one gal in charge of ice.
• Personalize to avoid duplication. I don’t like paper napkins. And I don’t have enough cloth napkins to provide a fresh one for every guest for every meal. So I attached little charms to each napkin. The charms had words like “family,” “faith” and “dream.” I asked each guest to remember her word, so she could reuse her napkins, and reduce trash and laundry. You can do the same with personalized napkin rings. One guest brought acrylic tumblers with our names painted on them, which kept the dishes down.
• Plan but don’t overplan. Before the gals arrived, I sent out a suggested itinerary and asked for feedback. We added and removed activities, and created a flexible plan for each day, but a plan nonetheless to give the days structure. Organized activities included visiting an art fair, walking through a botanical garden and shopping downtown, alongside ample downtime.
• Take a timeout. This advice falls under the category of “Put on your own oxygen mask first.” If you don’t take time for yourself, you can’t be a gracious host. It’s okay to retreat and recharge.
And guess what? I did have a great time.
Marni Jameson is the author of six home and lifestyle books, including “What to Do With Everything You Own to Leave the Legacy You Want,” “Downsizing the Family Home What to Save, What to Let Go,” and “Downsizing the Blended Home — When Two Households Become One.” You may reach her at marnijameson.com.