Learning to enjoy entertaining

Last week on Instagram, I shared a short post about how we learned to have faith in timing. More specifically it was about the fact that I had grand ideas of entertaining friends, when we really didn’t have any. I know that might sound a bit shocking coming from a girl who’s basically lived her whole life in one house, but it’s true. We just didn’t have many local friends to invite to dinner or hang out with on a Friday night. But we decided to think about entertaining when we began renovating outdoor areas and more specifically finishing up the inside of our home.

For five long years we worked diligently on our home. Almost every weekend was filled with home projects and I’ve even built a business that supports our family from the blog (so THANK YOU for allowing me to do that!) With all the plans, especially in the last two years, we really thought through how it would work for entertaining more than just us 4. Like 20 or 30 or even 50 people. Could we make it work? Occasionally we’d think “we don’t even know that many people.” But we built it anyway. And we hoped they would come.

Then one day I ran into my best friend from high school. We had run into each other a few times over the 2+ decades since high school, and always mentioned getting together. This time, though, it was different. I told her that I really, really wanted to go to lunch – we always said we would but never did.And so we made plans right then to have lunch the next week. After that we got together often, finding it was very easy to slide right back into our friendship.

She introduced me to her friends… and they brought their friends. Then I found other friends, like the parents of my daughter’s best friend. I just realized that instead of being mildly friendly – why not be truly friendly and invite people to lunch or invite them over to dinner and then we could truly become friends.

So this year I had a Christmas party and invited all of my friends. Of course a year ago I wouldn’t have had enough seats for them to all to sit in – but thinking forward helped me choose a sectional and other chairs.

But I think the key was to choosing only items that I truly, truly loved. The same forward thinking helped me realize less is more – and to decorate with very few things so my house felt cozy but not cramped.

So I lit a few yummy Yankee Candles. I’m especially crushing on their new scents of the season: Luscious Plum, Candy Cane Lane, Luscious Plum, Magical Frosted Forest, Angel’s Wings tumblers. They also have the pretty Pure Radiance™ vases (like above) in new fragrance Winter – which is the one I love, and the oh so perfect for the season: Christmas Candy.

Because everyone looks better in candle light…

Poured a few drinks (because we are THOSE kinda girls)…

And made a lot of yummy food…

And I invited everyone into my house to enjoy time together.

For the first time (maybe ever), I didn’t explain away how we still had to finish the siding or the living room floors were left to complete.

We just enjoyed our time together and laughed, and ate, and drank, and laughed some more.

Because entertaining shouldn’t be about apologizing where you feel your insecurities are. It should be about welcoming people into the home you’ve created and sharing the love you have for them. They’ll just be happy to be there – they really won’t notice that the dog chewed the corner of the bathroom door.

And of course a few great party favors never hurts. Yankee Candle was super sweet to send their gorgeous candles for my party. I never realized what great gifts they make! Easy to stock up on, too (which makes gift giving all the much easier!)

Christmas (and entertaining) is only stressful if you allow it to be.

Slow down. Light a candle. Enjoy your friends.

Life is short and our to-do lists are too long. That was my mantra this year.

*Thanks to Yankee Candle for Partnering with me on this post. All ideas, words, opinions and photographs are 100% my own.*