Over the holidays, we hosted 12 people in our home – five members of our own family, and the rest, beloved extended family. This wasn’t our first time hosting, but after a few gos (and benefitting from experiencing the hospitality of other, more experienced hosts ourselves), it felt like our smoothest and most successful stay yet. I took notes throughout our time together, and would love to share a few tips while they’re still fresh!
1. Clear surfaces.
Before guests arrived, I moved through the house and cleared off every surface I could – counters, benches, side tables, coffee tables, desks. Your house is about to get a lot more chaotic, with not only many more bodies but their attendant cups/bags/chargers/water bottles/books. Creating space in advance not only gives those items a place to land, it helps to keep your home visually calm (which for me, helps with mental calm!).
2. Plan every meal.
And I mean EVERY meal. In previous years of hosting, I’d always plan out a menu, but I’d often purposefully leave gaps. Oh, I’d think, we’ll probably have leftovers then, or maybe we’ll go out for that meal. Reader, there were never leftovers. Reader, it took an hour for us to decide by committee whether we wanted to go out or get takeout, and what kind of food we were in the mood for.
This time, I made a plan for every single meal. I planned whether we would get takeout or whether we’d eat at a restaurant. I planned something for every breakfast. I planned for every lunch. With large groups, I’ve found that a laidback meal plan is not generous or community-spirited, it’s a firestorm of frustration and hangry kids waiting to happen.
Of course, we could and did veer from the plan throughout the week, but always being prepared with a Plan A was key to keeping everyone fed and happy.
3. Don’t forget the fun.
Speaking of meal plans: don’t forget that as the host (especially if it’s a holiday week!), you’re assuming the role of head magic-maker, at least on the food front. You know all those special little touches that delight you as a guest at your parents’ or friends’ home? It’s your turn! I’m thinking things like a festive cocktail with dinner, a mini charcuterie board in the afternoon, fun breakfasts, the traditional dessert that’s a part of every family Christmas, a post-present-opening pan of sliders, or an afternoon snack of hot pretzels.
This is not to say that all the fun or food needs to literally be created by you, but the shopping list might. Otherwise, you might be dooming yourself to a last-minute grocery store run :)
4. Buy more fruit than you think you need.
Speaking of grocery store runs: this tip just as easily could have been “buy more of everything than you think you need,” but I find fruit goes particularly fast. Costco is my favorite place to buy grapes, berries, bananas, clementines, and the like so I don’t have to feel miserly as I dole out fruit to kids at breakfast.
5. Get on the same page as your spouse about helper tasks.
I am fully owning that this might be a niche piece of advice for my own marriage – or perhaps it’s more universal. You tell me :)
John and I sometimes differ on how much help we want or need from our guests, especially when the guests are family members. What feels natural to me is a model where guests pitch in with almost everything. I’ve seen bonds strengthened over a sink full of suds and I know my family gets antsy if they feel like they’re sitting around when others are “working.” John, desiring to allow our guests to relax and to keep a sense of normalcy in the way things are run around the house, prefers that we do the bulk of household tasks as they come up.
Here’s what’s helped us moved past this clash: brainstorming in advance what jobs we both feel great about guests taking on AND which jobs we want to keep in our control. For example, my Dad took on the job of breaking down cardboard boxes and carting them to the recycling – so helpful! Or maybe there’s a family member who’s happy to make last-minute runs to the store. Maybe someone loves folding laundry and you don’t have strong feelings about how laundry is folded. But maybe you do have strong feelings about how the dishwasher is loaded :)
6. Plan for auxiliary trash and recycling…
Speaking of cardboard boxes (see how these are all connected? :)): 12 people will generally create a lot of trash and recycling, especially if you’re hosting your group over the holidays (think: gift packaging, wrapping paper, shipping boxes, bottles of fun beverages, etc.). To make matters worse, your regular trash and recycling pick-up might be delayed because of the holidays.
Before you get to the point where you’re surrounded by overflowing garbage cans and are blindly chucking cardboard boxes into your garage because the recycling’s full (ask me how I know), reserve a large cardboard box or two to serve as overflow trash and recycling receptacles. It will keep things SO much more organized.
7. …and secondary food storage.
This might not be needed if you have a large pantry, a garage refrigerator, or a chest freezer. We have none of those things, so we had to get a bit more creative to store the large amounts of food needed to feed 12 people three meals a day for several days.
Happily (though slightly embarrassingly), we still had a wire shelf on our porch that was removed during our kitchen refresh. Because of the low temperatures, we were able to store not only boxed and bagged goods on it, but even items that should have been in our refrigerator. If outside temperatures hadn’t cooperated, I would have conscripted our cooler.
Obviously, it’s most important to make sure your food stays at a safe temperature (you know John was on top of that!), but you will likely find it difficult to store enough food for several days in a single refrigerator/freezer. We definitely did.
Cousins to read with! Annie’s favorite part of houseguests!
8. Run a load of laundry every night.
I learned this one from watching my sister-in-law! Some of you may normally be one-load-a-day people, but we are not – we tend to do a few loads once a week. However, I’ve found it very helpful to run a small load every night when we have a large group of guests. That way, anyone can throw an item of clothing in that may have gotten stained during the day, and a fresh tablecloth and napkins are always at the ready. Speaking of which…
9. Use tablecloths (and make sure you have two).
One of my least favorite household chores is wiping down the table after meals, using a tablecloth makes it bearable. Our collection is nothing fancy – they’re mostly from Target or Amazon (like these pretty ones!) – but clean-up becomes super easy when you can simply scoop up the cloth and all the crumbs, give it a good shake outside, then pop it in the washing machine. Same for cloth napkins. Instead of trying to remember whose whose, just toss them in your daily load.
10. Hug your robot vacuum.
Our robot vacuum is a treasured member of the fam on an ordinary day, but with a big group of houseguests, it’s such a comfort knowing that the floors will be wiped clean overnight with minimal effort on our part. We still often have to do a mid-day sweep, but our little one-robot cleaning crew definitely lightens the load.
11. Institute the five-minute clean-up.
Our 12 guests included several children, all of whom greatly enjoyed playing with each other and seemingly every toy we own (often at the same time). I did my best to embrace this, but also regularly called for “5-minute clean-ups.” We’d do these before meals, before quiet time, before bedtime, before leaving the house – whenever it felt needed. With many hands pitching in, we usually had the play space back to baseline before the timer even dinged.
12. Edit your toy selection.
One thing that made 5-minute clean-ups easier was a thoughtful edit of our toys before guests arrived. If there are toys with tons of little pieces you don’t want to manage, toys that you know will cause squabbling, or toys that generally encourage rowdiness, consider moving them to a closet, the attic, or a playroom away from the main gathering spaces. For example, we kept our MagnaTiles in the main room, but I put the LEGO bin in the attic as well as a ride-on toy that usually lives downstairs.
13. Get outside every day.
This one doesn’t need much explanation, but it’s so important! A quick walk around the block or a longer hike refreshes everyone, burns off some energy, and is a nice chance to mix and match the group. Even though it was brisk, we’d bundle up for a quick spin around our neighborhood most nights after dinner, and tried to get outside at least one other time during the day, too.
No matter the size of your home or the makeup of your houseguests, hosting a large group is a big undertaking. I’ve found that the more preparation I do in advance, the easier it is to relax and enjoy my loved ones while I’m with them. I hope this post can help you do just that!
Of course, there are many more tips I could add (and I hope you’ll add your best nuggets in the comments!), but these were a few of the more obscure tidbits that really made a difference for us in the thick of things. Tuck this post away for when your next group is coming to town! :)
While I do have severalgoals for the year, I have just one resolution. (Saying that with a bit of a cheeky wink – the difference between goals and resolutions, in my mind, being that goals are things I plan for and track, and resolutions are simply well-meaning intentions. Needless to say I don’t go in much for resolutions :))
Anyway, here’s the resolution: I resolve to post my Em for Marvelous travel recaps in the month they happened, or the month after. I am… not known for this, which is why I’m posting our October trip to Highlands here in January. But I’d really like to be better, because it’s much easier to remember details and, I think, capture the feel of a trip when it’s fresh in my mind! The problem is usually that travel recaps loom large in my mind, since they’re some of the more laborious posts I write with all of their photos and details and linking. But I do love them for family memory keeping purposes, and I’m always delightfully surprised by the number of you who have written and commented over the years that you’ve used a travel post as inspiration for your own family’s adventures. (Thank you for letting me know – truly, a huge compliment!)
In that spirit, let’s chat about our most recent visit to Highlands, NC!
John and I had been to Highlands a few times before – most recently in 2020, when it was a welcome respite in the middle of all things pandemic. That trip was pretty darn wonderful, so it was rather bold of us to attempt a repeat so soon, ha! Our 2022 trip was delightful in its own way, but not without its challenges, as you’ll see.
Highlands is about 5 hours from our home near Raleigh, NC. We left school a bit early on Thursday, October 20 to arrive in Highlands about 6pm. We stayed in this Airbnb, which was perched on the side of a mountain just outside of downtown – with kids, it was about a 25-minute walk to the main drag, or about a 10-minute drive.
As you find with many mountain town rental homes, the driveway was a bit unnerving. I was glad John was driving :) We have an SUV, so I wasn’t really afraid we wouldn’t be able to get up the hill, but the driveway itself was gravel, steep, and did not have much turning or parking room at the top.
The house itself was lovely, though! The breakfast table was beautiful in the morning sun, and we enjoyed the games stocked on the shelves. If I could do it again I would have chosen a place without stairs for this particular year, as Annie was bound and determined to climb them and much of our time was spent chasing her down or spotting her as she climbed.
On our first night, John walked down the mountain into town with the kids to stretch their legs (above) while I drove down in the car (to ferry us all back after dark). We grabbed takeout from Mountain Fresh Grocery. We’d been there before and have liked many things we’ve gotten, but June and I both got pasta this time and were not impressed – it was pretty flavorless. Stick to the pizza, grill, or prepared foods case!
The next morning, we ate breakfast at the house before heading out to hike Whiteside Mountain. We had tried to hike Whiteside the last time we were in Highlands, but the parking lot was too full by the time we arrived. (We did, however, hike it wayyyyy back in 2011!) Well, the combo of arriving at 10am and on a Friday did the trick, because we easily found a spot this time around.
The hike was a delight with a view well worth the climb. (One thing I especially appreciate about this hike: even though you’re right up on the edge and there are steep cliffs, it is well fenced, making it less stressful with little ones.) The kids were absolute champs, especially June who – as we found out later – was suffering from the flu. Argh! Talk about a cringe parenting moment. I hate that we made her climb a literal mountain while she was under the weather, but she was a complete and total trooper.
We walked right up to The Wine Garden at Madison’s (run by Old Edwards Inn, in the center of town) for lunch, and it was one of my favorite memories of the trip! Their seating is outside, and it was a chilly day, but we were cozy and comfy with heat lamps and thick blankets at each of our seats. Though Old Edwards is generally a high-end spot, the outdoor setting, bustling atmosphere, and mini waterfall at our backs made for a kid-friendly lunch (can you spot us in the picture above?). Recommend!
After lunch, it was back to the house for quiet time. John and I probably napped, ha. Later that evening, we drove back downtown and walked the streets looking in shop windows while we waited for our table to be ready at Four65. (One thing that kind of annoys me about Highlands – the shops close really early! Even in what I assume is peak fall season, almost every shop on the main street was closed at 6 or before.)
We LOVED our dinner at Four65! Our wood-fired pizzas were delicious, we were seated at a big round table tucked in the corner (great for kids!), they brought fun coloring sheets and crayons to the table, and the service was great. Recommend!
Another morning, another hike. But first! A major Dad move. On the drive to the start, John led us on a short jaunt into the forest on the side of the road to pay our respects to a very old, very grand tree – the Bob Padgett Tulip Poplar. We talked about how it was older than America, and the kids were somewhat impressed.
We then made our way to our true destination, Secret Falls. It was an easy half-mile hike with several logs to walk across and streams to hop. And the waterfalls at the end were beautiful! It lived up to its secretive name – we passed maybe one other group on the trail and saw another in the parking lot when we got back to our car, but were otherwise on our own.
We grabbed a quick lunch at Highlands Burritos, which was fine but in the name of transparency a stressful parenting moment, as Annie was tired and hungry and not afraid to let us know it :)
After quiet time, we drove back into town, grabbed a charcuterie kit from Mountain Fresh (we learned from our experience in 2020!), and hiked up Sunset Rock to watch the sun go down. It’s a pretty easy hike even in twilight – about 45 minutes up and 30 minutes down on a wide gravel road.
That night, we ate dinner at the Ugly Dog Pub, another revisit from 2020. Unfortunately, it was another lackluster experience – the service was pretty awful, which can be a bit stressful when you’re trying to move expeditiously through dinner with three little kids after a long day. But we survived! The food was fine :)
On Sunday, we packed up and headed home, grateful for another weekend in the beautiful mountains we love.
And that’s a wrap! For more from Highlands, my recap from 2020 has lots of photos and details, too. And stay tuned, because in 2023, we’re headed to Boone for a totally new adventure! :)
Friends, I have gone back and forth on gift guides this year! On the one hand, they take a lot of time to prepare, they might in the end be only nominally helpful, and the sheer preponderance of gift guides on the internet feels almost distasteful. On the other hand, I genuinely enjoy compiling them, the delight of helping one of you find a perfect gift is intoxicating, and they do contribute to the cost of keeping my internet home online. A conundrum!
One gift guide I knew I’d share? What we’re actually giving our kids this Christmas! It’s been a favorite post since 2019, when we had a four-year-old and a one-year-old. Below, I’ve shared what each of our kiddos will be finding under the tree this year, along with a few suggestions I gave to relatives. As a sort of gift guide compromise, I’ve also listed a few of the very favorite kid items we already own at the bottom if you’re looking for a few more suggestions.
All three kids will be getting a selection of clothes from my favorite consignment sale. When I shopped earlier this fall, I set aside some of my favorite pieces to place under the tree instead of into their drawers! In addition…
June (who is almost seven) will be receiving: — A mama-daughter camp weekend. We have our eye on a particular sleepaway camp for the future (June looooves to watch their promotional video, ha), and thought it might be wise to dip our toe in before committing to a week in the summer. This introvert is a bit nervous, but also thinks it will be SO fun to spend the weekend with just my biggest girl! — The Penderwicks boxed set, because we both fell in love with the first book earlier this year and I know she’ll be excited to unwrap the full set of these sweet modern classics. I snagged mine on Zulily last month for a steal. — Word search and crossword books. June likes to help my Dad with his NYT crosswords when he visits, and she’s expressed interest in having a book of her own. We picked these up at a toy store in Highlands! — Paper Goods Projects + a craft store gift card, because she’s always cutting, taping, and coloring during quiet time. Kid craft books are surprisingly hard to find, but there’s no one I trust more in this arena than Jodi Levine (a member of Martha’s team for 19 years!) — New sneakers, because her old ones are pulling apart at the seams.
Shep (who is 4 1/2) will be receiving: — A fire truck wallet, because the dollars he’s gotten from relatives are floating around his room and he loves June’s. Snagged this on our trip to Highlands, too! — An art set, because he’s always drawing something. (I think he is going to LOVE this. The carrying case! So fun!) — A puzzle table. He requested a table and chairs for his room, but since there’s not really enough space, we thought this fold-up surface would do the trick. And we can slide it under the bed when he’s not using it! — A remote control Batmobile and figurine. This was a direct request :) — A new winter hat, because Annie has inherited his old one.
Annie (who is 1 1/2) will be receiving: — A little plush carrier with animals inside, because she’ll love carrying it around and taking them in and out. — A lunchbox, because she starts preschool soon and will need to pack a lunch!
As the third child and second girl, this gal needs almost nothing and is still so young that gifts won’t make a big impression, so I have very few other suggestions for relatives! The only other thing I’ve seen that looks fun is this color-changing sink :)
A few of our time-tested, very favorite toys and gifts:
— A set of MagnaTiles, because yes, they’re as good as everyone says they are. Played with multiple times a week by all three kids. Definitely add the cars, and remember MagnaTiles and PicassoTiles are interchangeable! — A big box of colorful Duplos (also played with almost daily by all three!). — This ice cream play set, which has provided hours and hours of entertainment. FIVE STARS. — A Micro Kickboard scooter. These are hands-down the best scooters – we’ve gifted them to both of our kids around age 2, and 3-5 is the sweet spot. — A game you can play together: try Cover Your Assets, Ticket to Ride, or Sushi Go Party, all some of June’s favorites at almost 7. (More ideas here!) — A Yoto, for a tech-free audio book player. The radio station is quite good, too! I’d recommend adding the Yoto Club subscription for a year to build up your card collection, and we also have the card binder. We’re all in, ha! — The cutest personalized notepads. BIG favorite with June. — A Priority Start bike. June started with the 16″ at age 4 3/4, and graduated to the 20″ at age 6 (and passed the 16″ to Shep for his 4th birthday!). These bikes are SO well-made and look good, too! :) — Alice & Ames dresses, because they are the twirliest with the best patterns. — A Kiwi Co subscription or Highlights magazine subscription. — The Playmobil recycling truck, which is in constant rotation around our house. I would recommend for 4+, as the pieces are a bit small and finicky.
Whew! I hope that’s helpful! I’ve rounded up a bunch of ideas, but remember, kids don’t need much to be happy – in our family, we’ve actually found that too many gifts can be overwhelming and dull the whole experience. So choose wisely, and with joy – giving our kids good gifts is a really fun part of being a parent! :) And happy Thanksgiving, friends!!
After the angst of last year, this year’s goals came clearly and quickly, and I’m really excited about them! As always, I set my 2022 goals with the help of my PowerSheets – they remind me what really matters to me and then help me make those things a priority. Sharing my goals here, year after year and month after month, is quite possibly the most potent factor in any progress I’ve made, so thank you, as always, for being kind, listening ears! :)
1. Return to in-person worship. My understanding of Jesus’s vision for a life of faith centers around learning, growing, and loving in a local community. Like many, we have worshipped from home since churches closed at the beginning of the pandemic, and that has been good in many ways, but I have felt strong confirmation that it is time for our family to open ourselves back up to the discipline and delight of in-person worship. This is not as simple as walking back through the doors (hence why it’s a goal), but it’s also very tender, so this is probably not a goal you’ll be hearing much more about right now. But it’s number one for a reason :)
2. Bury the word of God in our hearts. If I want to invite my children into a life of faith, the most powerful thing I can do is to live one myself – and let my children see me living it. The word of God needs to be on MY tongue if I want to teach it to them. The fruit of the Spirit needs to be in ME if I want to encourage it in them. The life of a believer needs to look like the best, most true and joyful and free life if I want them to say – I want THAT. This goal will initially focus on building a morning quiet time for myself and memorizing scripture as a family, but I’m open to where it takes me!
3. Complete my outstanding creative projects quarter by quarter. Last year, I had two goals related to creative projects and memory keeping, and while they all inched forward a bit, I didn’t move any of my many projects across the finish line. This year, to lend urgency, I’m assigning my projects to quarters and will only focus on one at a time.
Q1: 2010-2014 family photo album Q2: First 10 years of EFM book Q3: Kid memorabilia and memory keeping (baby books up to date, etc.) Q4: Advent calendar
4. Make my fitness a priority and have fun doing it. Fitness was 100% not a priority in 2021 – being a healthy pregnant person and a cozy post-partum person was, and that was perfect for that season of life. And 2022 is a new season! I have several goals under this umbrella: complete a diastasis recti program (any recommendations?), compete with our siblings in a Peloton challenge in Q1 (and probably Q4), add Annie into our life as a bike-riding family and get back out on the trails (starting in Q2!), and complete an MS75 ride in September with John and hopefully our brother- and sister-in-law!
5. Celebrate our marriage with joy! This one gets an exclamation point :) We are celebrating our tenth wedding anniversary this year, and that is a milestone worthy of celebration! There’s not a lot I want to *do* for this goal; I mostly just want to make it a focus to praise the Lord for all He has done and continues to do in our marriage. We’ll continue with our monthly date nights and celebrate big-time with our anniversary trip in September. On that trip, I’d also like to incorporate some “marriage summit”-type activities and vision casting for the next decade, which will take some intentional pre-planning.
6. Refresh our home one quarter at a time. We have a few projects already in the works, and like goal no. 3, I’m going to try to focus on these one by one.
Q1: Refresh our kitchen (and possibly our mantel) Q2: Tweak our loft into a true play room Q3: Refresh our powder room Q4: Probably nothing – enjoy the holidays :)
7. Establish new rhythms for our family. I am so grateful that many things are running smoothly and joyfully in our family. I also know that our family is always changing, and so upgrading and fine-tuning our ways of life will always be one of my most important roles (alongside John!). The five of us are held together and built up by rhythms, routines, and traditions, and so it’s worth spending time tinkering. I need to do a little more mapping on this goal, but there are a few rhythms I’m considering implementing, codifying, or deepening: Sunday dinners, Sunday mornings (see goal no. 1!), family meetings with learning topics (oh yes), once-a-month friend lunches, Write the Word Sundays with June, family hikes, and baking together.
8. Make meals easier. This is by far the simplest goal! I have focused on various aspects of getting food on the table in my goals for the last few years, and I have seen HUGE strides in making this part of our family life run more smoothly. This year, this goal is basically about buying a secondary fridge/small chest freezer and developing a rhythm of doubling and freezing meals and incorporating frozen meals into my weekly meal planning. I also want to build out 1-2 “brainless” weeks of menus for each season that I can copy and paste when I’m short on time. That’s it! :)
As always, each of these goals will be broken down and lived out through my monthly goals. A little time at the beginning of each month and week picking out a few tasks that will help me move these goals forward goes a long way!
On that note,I’ll be back with my January goals post and my 2022 book list soon, but in the meantime, I’d love to hear what you have planned for 2022. Have you set goals yet? I’d truly love to hear, so please drop a note in the comments! I can’t wait to cheer you on.
