I love having people over for dinner. In fact, we host at least one night a week! I love everything about welcoming friends into our home, making them a meal and enjoying it along with rich conversation.
For the last 13 years I have had a mental check-list of things to do right before our guests arrive. These aren’t things I can really do more than 20 minutes in advance since I have kids and they live here. The good news, though is these are little chores, if you can even call them that.
Now, I get that your house is probably super clean and tidy all the time, and you are always ready for company. Your kids always put their toys away in the correct location and never use your scissors and leave them on the floor, because obviously that’s an inappropriate place to store someone else’s scissors. They also probably never use the potty and forget to flush it, or use up all the toilet paper without bothering to tell anyone or replace the empty roll with the new one in the basket right next to the toilet.
No, your home is exquisite and I applaud you with many claps.
My home is somewhat of a different story from yours, and that’s okay. It just takes a little more time to get ready when I have to mop up cat tracks in the living room and hide all the laundry I haven’t folded yet.
So after spending the bulk of your time putting toys away, cooking, and making sure everyone has on decent clothing (or clothing at all), don’t let these 5 things slip through the cracks:
5 Things To Do Before Guests Arrive
1. Do a quick run over the guest bathroom toilet, counter, and sink
Half the toothpaste from my kids’ toothbrushes ends up in the sink. Mainly smeared down the sides of the sink, never to make it all the way to the drain.
Before company arrives, I like to go ahead a wipe that down, as well as the rest of the counter that has no doubt seen dirty hands and arms, something sticky and unidentifiable, and who knows what else since I last wiped it.
Don’t worry about the bathtub right now. Your friends are coming over for dinner, not a bath. Close that shower curtain, light a candle on the counter, and call it!
2. Change the trash
All of it. Just start fresh. Literally. This is something my kids do for me whilst I scrub the aforementioned toothpaste off the sink. Ideally this happens after you have started cooking and before your friends arrive. Now no one has to smell the meat packaging or discarded onion peels or whatever stinky trash is in your trashcan.
3. Turn down the a/c
I am always shocked at how quickly our house reaches an uncomfortable temperature, however I usually forget to turn down the air before guests arrive. I typically bump it down 2-3 degrees depending on the weather outside and the time of day. Our thermostat has a timer for temporary temperature changes so after two hours it will go back to the original setting (aka I don’t have to think about it on the back end of the evening).
4. Turn on your lights
It’s weird to walk into a dark house. “Did they forget about our dinner plans?” “Is someone sick?” “Should we leave?” Don’t give your friends a reason to ask these questions. Go ahead and turn the lights on (inside and out) before they get to your house.
5. Close the garage door
My grandmother has a little sign at her back door that says, “Back door friends are best.” It’s meant to express the casual relationship close friends share. At our house, that sign would read a little more to the tune of “Back door friends get lost in the garage.” We love our friends, which is why we send them straight to the front door if at all possible. Our garage is a disaster zone and no one should ever have to see it (including me), much less maneuver their way through it. Goodness. This may or may not be a post in and of itself for a different day.
Finishing this short list makes me feel completely ready for guests to arrive even if my house isn’t spotless. Because, let’s face it, no one is as critical about your house as you are anyway, right?
At the end of the day, it’s more important to share our lives with others than to have a perfect house, whatever that means.