How often do you entertain??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have weekly dinners with my parents. For friends, we mostly do brunches these days. Way easier!!! Some months, we’ll host three, or even four brunches. And I honestly don’t mind.

What do you serve for brunch?

[Anonymous]

Our kids are 4 and 6 and we invite friends over for brunch or dinner and a playdate 1-2 times per month. For brunch, I serve bagels/cream cheese, muffins, a breakfast casserole, fruit salad, and a dessert. For dinner I usually serve: lasagna, salad, vegetable, cheese/crackers, and dessert. I like the fact that having people over gets me to deep clean my house regularly. I usually invite people over on a Sunday for brunch/dinner so I have all day Saturday to clean and shop. It is expensive, I usually spend at least $75 for all the food, etc.

[Anonymous]

4-5 times a year and that included the occasional out of towners.

[Anonymous]

We have friends over 2-3x a month.

[Anonymous]

I’m a SAHM and host moms and kids during the day when my big kids are in elementary. That I do often, maybe once per month. We throw Birthday parties and maybe 2-3 big gatherings. We have done 4th of July, Friendsgiving, Memorial Day bbq, stuff like that.

I feel like I’m always hosting. We host the most amongst our friends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a SAHM and host moms and kids during the day when my big kids are in elementary. That I do often, maybe once per month. We throw Birthday parties and maybe 2-3 big gatherings. We have done 4th of July, Friendsgiving, Memorial Day bbq, stuff like that.

I feel like I’m always hosting. We host the most amongst our friends.

Meant host daytime play dates once per week. Also host drop off play dates where parents sometimes stay for meal about once per week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I always wonder about this when I read the Sunday routine feature in the nytimes. All those people claim to have friends over for dinner every single sunday! I’m always like who really entertains that often...? But I guess some people do? My questions are: don’t you get stressed by all the cleaning, planning, and preparing involved? And when do your friends have a chance to reciprocate if you’re hosting that often? And how do you even gather that many people every week? Sometimes it seems like scheduling even one other couple/family to come over is so difficult.

I have friends who do a version of this, but the whole point is that it's potluck, casual, the kids can run around and play, etc... Literally everyone they know is invited every week, so they get a different mix of people every time and it's not a big production number-- very little pressure except that they make one big dish (the main course) and their house has to be not-filthy. That's 90% of it, because people will also chip in to help with the dishes, etc... although of course, you could do paper plates and eliminate that, too. I would love to do this, but DH and DC and I are pretty extroverted. It's actually the antidote to "let's get together sometime!" and having to make specific plans. You just know if you want to see [that family], you can go over to their house almost any Friday night.

[Anonymous]

I wish we could do it more but our close close friends all live 30+ minutes away sans traffic in this area. Some are child-free, and the rest of us have very young kids so its hard right now to find a time that works for the group.

If someone does host - it's usually a pizza or order-in type thing, or pot luck, we haven't done a real sit-down dinner entertainment in years.

I miss it so much. If I could wrangle it, I'd do it once every other month.

[Anonymous]

Probably once a week unless we're traveling (then it's less) or it's around holidays (then it's more).

[Anonymous]

Every 2-3 weeks, though have been trying to start a weekly sunday supper at our place! I find sunday dinner easiest to plan for, you have the whole weekend, people usually don't have plans, house is clean-ish.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I always wonder about this when I read the Sunday routine feature in the nytimes. All those people claim to have friends over for dinner every single sunday! I’m always like who really entertains that often...? But I guess some people do? My questions are: don’t you get stressed by all the cleaning, planning, and preparing involved? And when do your friends have a chance to reciprocate if you’re hosting that often? And how do you even gather that many people every week? Sometimes it seems like scheduling even one other couple/family to come over is so difficult.

I have friends who do a version of this, but the whole point is that it's potluck, casual, the kids can run around and play, etc... Literally everyone they know is invited every week, so they get a different mix of people every time and it's not a big production number-- very little pressure except that they make one big dish (the main course) and their house has to be not-filthy. That's 90% of it, because people will also chip in to help with the dishes, etc... although of course, you could do paper plates and eliminate that, too. I would love to do this, but DH and DC and I are pretty extroverted. It's actually the antidote to "let's get together sometime!" and having to make specific plans. You just know if you want to see [that family], you can go over to their house almost any Friday night.

It makes me sad when I see that people hold back from this stuff because they're worried about the house being clean. Most people don't care/won't be doing a white glove test, and those who would aren't people you'd want to hang out with anyway!

[Anonymous]

I would find Sunday supper the most stressful to host or even go out. That's when I want to relax before the work week. I like the idea of a Sunday brunch around 11. As someone else said, it's easier to get some juice/sparkling wine and buy bagels and cream cheese etc. Then you have time to relax the rest of the weekend after people leave (hopefully by 1:30 or so!)

[Anonymous]

We like to host people for dinner 2-4 times a month. If we just want to host adults we do any night but Sunday after 7:30 so our young children are in bed. If we host a family with young kids we do a weekend evening around 5. My husband often makes the exact same thing so it’s easy.

[Anonymous]

2-3 times a month. Might be house guests, or neighbors stopping by for a beer, or dinner with another family. A few times a year we have a big party.

We have cleaners come every other Friday, so on those weeks I feel like our house is all ready to host and on the off weeks having people over is good motivation to pick up a bit. DH and I both enjoy cooking for friends and sometimes host nice dinners, but we also don’t hesitate to send out a text saying ‘house is a mess but the weather is gorgeous and we’ve got beer and burgers in the fridge - whose up for hanging out on our porch?’. Usually we get takers.

[Anonymous]

Never, not anymore. I used to entertain a lot when my kids were younger. But now they are 10 and 12 and have so many activities that I'm just tired of the running around during the week and weekends. And none of our friends host so it's us doing all of the work and spending the money. It gets old after awhile. My DD did ask me recently why we don't entertain anymore. It made me think that maybe we should entertain more. But that thought lasted for a second! I'm too busy to plan anything major. I would like to have a family or two over, but then the kids don't always get along, and one of us doesn't like the spouse. It's rare that we like both people in the couple. Socializing just gets harder in your 40's.