Hospitality & Entertaining – Starting Small

If you’ve never entertained in your home, or if it has been a long time since you’ve entertained in your home, the idea of preparing a meal for a large number of people can be terrifying daunting.  However, extending hospitality doesn’t have to be all or nothing.  You really don’t have to start off with a multi-course formal dinner. 

Here are a few ways to start small:

Invite a co-worker home with you for lunch.  Is it your usual lunchtime routine to go home and make a sandwich?  Why not invite a co-worker along?  It’s a simple thing, and there’s a time limit, but you’re still extending hospitality.

Invite a neighbor in for coffee/muffins/iced tea.  Do you have a neighbor that you’re kind of friendly with?  Consider inviting them into your home for a hot cup of coffee on a cold day, or maybe a glass of iced tea on a warm day when they’ve been out doing yard work. 

Invite friends back to your home after another event.  There are lots of events going on during this time of year: tree lightings, shopping trips with friends, going to look at Christmas lights, etc.  Extend an invitation to go to your home afterward for something simple, maybe hot cocoa or hot apple cider.

What you offer isn’t as important as the gesture.  Maybe you make the world’s best chocolate chip cookies, and you can share them with guests in your home.  That’s wonderful.  Or maybe you can’t bake to save your life, and you invite guests into your home to share Chips Ahoy cookies. That’s wonderful too.