The Art of Hospitality
March 6, 2012
MANY PEOPLE think that a great hostess is born, not made. There is some truth to this as some women are more extroverted than others. But even charming extroverts can make lousy, insensitive hostesses.
The art of hospitality must be learned. It takes years of practice, which is why many women today give up in frustration and brag about throwing things together, as if they did not really care.
At Home Living, Lydia Sherman offers simple guidelines for how to entertain guests well.
A woman, by the way, should always entertain her own family first. The rest of the world comes in a distant second.
—- Comments—
Lydia Sherman writes:
I think the big problem is not so much the hostess and her confidence, but the rudeness of guests! It puts the hostess off and she is then more reluctant to entertain. Guests are so used to fast food and ordering what they want to, with specific details, that they fuss over the food, or worse, ask what is going to be served as soon as they are invited, and they complain they are on a diet, allergic to certain things, or just don’t like tea.
Guests also roam through the house, going into forbidden, private areas, and go outside to explore the storage shed or garage. One child got locked in a room and could not get out. It spoiled the entire party.
Another guest was told to relax and make himself at home and so he moved the chair he was sitting in ( a huge comfortable chair in a living room arrangement) closer to another guest so he could hear them better.
Children leave their shoes, boots, mittens, toys and other important things for the hostess to return. Adults make fun of the tea cups claiming they must hold their pinkie in the air while drinking and doing so with great laughter.
Others just don’t understand the why’s of hospitality and will question the hostess as to the reason she invited them.
Kimberly writes:
I agree with Lydia entirely about how people have been ruined for nice home gatherings. Even cooking for my own husband has been very discouraging because he used to lack so many “acquired tastes” and to make matters worse, my feminist upbringing left me clueless in the kitchen.
I started cooking with great enthusiasm, but it wasn’t long before he took the wind from my sail, and I have taken a huge step back from really putting my heart into it. He sees that now, and regrets it, although I do make decent hot meals every night.
I think he knows that I could have been headed for becoming a really excellent cook, and that now I may never care to become more than average. He’s been much more careful about what he says and more grateful about every meal I make.
As for the extended family, I have known some discouragements as well.
When we baptized our third child, my mother-in-law had recently moved back to town. She and my father-in-law had a bitter divorce many years ago, and my father-in-law hates her and will not enter a room with her. My father-in-law is re-married, my mother-in-law is not. Since she was alone and lonely, and a Christian, we decided to invite her to the baptism. We had invited my liberal father-in-law and his new wife to the previous two baptisms and both times, he showed up late and his wife did not attend (she married her first husband in the Church and never bothered with an annulment, but is content with hating God instead). When they found out that they were not invited because mother was, they flipped out. I called and apologized, explaining that they were welcome to come but that we figured he would rather not since she would be there. I asked what he would like me to do in the future to avoid offending him and at the same time avoid offending his ex-wife. He never responded, and he and my husband quarreled, and have not spoken in almost a year now all because of this.
In spite of these discouragements, I still feel it part of my duty to practice hospitality and I am not at all convinced that it isn’t worth the risks, awful as those risks may be. On my mother-in-law’s birthday last August, I invited her and her closest friend, and my own grandmother, aunt and cousin to have tea. I have English blood and I love good tea, and my grandmother used to take me to those expensive tea houses when I was a little girl. I had made “Mamina’s Cookies” (a dear friend’s recipe from her grandmother with ingredients like oat flour and chocolate-bar-chunks) a week before and had saved some balls of uncooked dough in an egg carton in the freezer. I let them thaw and baked them fresh right before my guests arrived, which made the house smell wonderful. I made apricot-swirl scones from scratch the night before, which was actually very easy and they turned out beautifully. They were the hit of the table. I also made cucumber sandwiches with butter, salt, and white bread, and stacked them on the plate in little cut triangles. I did this right as my guests were arriving, so there was that “awkwardness of fumbling for things” that Lydia describes, and next time I will learn from her advice and my experience to prepare all the food ahead of time.
I had my pretty, freshly washed apron and the table was set with cloth and china before the guests arrived. My house was clean, but my back yard was a dreadful mess, and you have to go through it, through a gate, to get to my front door. I think little humiliations like that are good for me, and while my guests may have felt a little uneasy walking to my door, they were relieved to find a pleasant atmosphere once they got through it. I had a blue vase of baby’s breath on the table; cheap, simple and stunning. I led them to the table where they sat the entire time, and then back to the door when they left. Everyone brought gifts for my mother-in-law, which was not something I asked of them and was very sweet. I had judged the character of my aunt would fit well with that of my mother-in-law, and it turned out to be true. It was an all around delightful experience and I plan to have them again this summer.
