Showing posts with label hospitality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hospitality. Show all posts

Friday, December 16, 2011

It takes a village



The party last night was great - mostly because everyone felt comfortable enough to have a good time.  I couldn't have pulled it off by myself, though.  Thank you to my mom who spent hours last Friday cleaning my house and loaned me plates, silverware, and chairs.  Thank you to Amy M. and Lisa D. who loaned me glasses, napkins, and tables.  And thank you to everyone who gave me ideas on how to rearrange my furniture so that everyone would have a place to sit. 

I was forced into using my favorite combination of gray and gold, because my decor is gray and my mom's plates are gold.  It was definitely a challenge trying to match so many different items from different places, but it worked!  Now it's time for a nap.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

The tyranny of rising expectations

I started this blog under the influence of Dr. Richard Swenson's book In Search of Balance.  After a year of  "finding soul balance", I actually feel fairly balanced.  However, now I feel like there is too much of everything.  I often move at such a rapid pace that I have no time to take a breath.  So, I've started reading another one of his books called Margin.   

In planning my husband's company Christmas party for tomorrow night, I have been occasionally overwhelmed by the never-ending details.  I have to stop and remember that it won't be perfect.  With all of the entertaining magazines and blogs out there, I should be able to come up with the perfect decor, the appropriate music, and the best food.  The reality is that I can hardly finish cleaning one area before my children have created a whole city made out of tiny little pieces of paper in another area. 

And of course, the biggest question is - What should I wear?




With all of these clothes, why do I feel like I have nothing to wear?  I believe it is due to the tyranny of rising expectations created by our super-information culture.  What happened to the age in which people had one nice dress that they wore to church and all special events?  We have so many options, that we expect things to be more than perfect.

So thanks to analysis provided by reading Dr. Swenson's book, I am going to re-frame our party tomorrow night from the idea of "entertaining" to the idea of "hospitality".  We didn't invite everyone to our house to show off our "fancy" things.  We invited them so they will feel comfortable and enjoy each other.  As I have said before, it's people that make a party.