Happy (Almost) Thanksgiving! I absolutely love this time of year. There are so many celebrations and get togethers with family and friends! Just this week we got together with our bible study group and had a “Friendsgiving” Dinner. I was panicking slightly… about the food, the space, the decorations… it can be stressful hosting at your own house!
Well surprisingly, all my panicking thoughts were quickly dissipated this past Tuesday at MOPS (Mother’s of Preschoolers). We had this wonderful speaker- Teresa Swanstrom Anderson– she has the most beautiful blog by the way, click here to see it!!
Who spoke about hosting, how to ‘honor your guests with beauty,’ the importance of opening your home up, how to ‘shop your house,’ and just so many wonderful & Godly, tips, tricks and motivation for hosting beautiful get-togethers in your home!
Jordan and I love hosting parties, dinners and get togethers. We love serving others and opening up our home to friends and family. With that, I always find myself spending way too much money on decor and food to have everything perfect. This ends up stressing me out, I don’t enjoy it and don’t enjoy the conversation or relationships because I’m so focused on making everything perfect!
While speaking on Tuesday, one thing Teresa said that really stood out to me was
“Your guests might leave remembering how wonderful things tasted upon their plate, but it’s not what they will remember weeks later. It’s the experience, the conversation, and the friendship.”
I loved that! I am always so stressed that the food is perfect and stress that my home isn’t good enough. I just felt much more stress free and joyful this time around- and I was preparing my very first turkey, and hosting 13 people! Usually I would be over the top stressed about something like that… I’ve never made a turkey, our table has room for 6…we don’t have space or a big kitchen. But I remembered- it’s not what’s important. The experience is what they will remember. The conversation, and the friendship.
I want to focus a bit on the experience part of that. I of course always try to have a clean home when others come over and love decorating my house for my guests. Why is that important? I loved how Teresa explained it-
It’s showing your guests that you are “honoring them with beauty.” You’re honoring them with a clean home and decorative pieces. You make people feel special, recognized, welcome, and comfortable. It’s not about showing off your house and buying expensive things.
This is where I typically would go overboard at Target or Hobby Lobby… USUALLY I would go buy all. the. things. 😂 Which again would cause stress! But how do I honor my guests with beauty if I don’t go buy something beautiful?!
My second favorite tip from Teresa-
SHOP YOUR HOUSE
I have SO. MUCH. STUFF. in my house! It just takes a bit of creativity and you can make a beautiful table for your guests. I LOVED how my Thanksgiving table turned out, and what’s even better is I spent less than 5 dollars.
Here’s what my table included!
- Flowers from a centerpiece typically on our dining room table
- Leaf garland that was hanging on my mantel above my fireplace
- Candles from around my home
- Pumpkins that were on sale for $1.00 a piece at King Soopers
- I used some old pumpkin dessert plates as candle holders
- My homemade pies that I was serving for dessert
- And my favorite part- WRAPPING PAPER from Michaels as my table cloth.
This was another fun trick I learned from Teresa! Literally on my way to MOPS I was thinking, “OK Jordan is bringing home an ugly plastic table for us to use from his office, I’m going to need to buy a table cloth. But the plastic ones look so tacky… I’ll have to get an expensive one.” Teresa shared this wrapping paper trick and it worked SO WELL! I went and bought a brown roll of wrapping paper from Michaels and rolled it out over the tables. Not only did it look cute, but the clean up was easy and it was TWO DOLLARS.
We used mismatched plates, silverware, glasses, and paper napkins… but it didn’t matter! Everyone brought a dish to share, there wasn’t even space left for a glass on our small kitchen counter. We all squeezed into our small 6 person dining room… BUT the experience, the conversation,the friendships, were all there.
We had great food and lots of laughs, no body noticed the small kitchen or small space! Everyone was so focused on the beauty, the food, the friendships, the conversations. It was so wonderful to sit back and be comfortable, in fact I was so comfortable I forgot to take pictures!! Luckily my dear friend Jordan got a nice selfie, and of course I’m the only one with a mouthful of turkey 😂
“Beautiful things happen when we open our doors and are ok with being comfortable”