entertaining · Gifts · home · Thanksgiving

Being the Best Guest/Best Hostess

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If you’re blessed enough to be a guest in someone’s home for Thanksgiving tomorrow, let me remind you of a few things that will make your hostess sorry to see you leave!

  • Take a thoughtful Hostess gift – even if you’re going to your mom’s!  It doesn’t have to be expensive – just thoughtful.  Here are some ideas:
    • Tea Towel – A Christmas one she can use right away would be nice!
    • A Bag of coffee, Tea or Hot Chocolate – Find something they’d love.  Maybe include a couple pretty mugs (unless the already have 1,000,000,000,000)
    • Homemade cookies or muffins on a pretty platter they can keep.
    • Homemade bread wrapped on a cutting board they can keep.
    • Delicious smelling candle – Those 3-wick candles are wonderful!
    • Box of chocolates
    • Guest book
    • Holiday magazines, slipper socks and packages of hot chocolate so she can relax after the crowd has gone home!
  • Offer to help and then stick around and do it.  Don’t say, “Let me know if I can do anything and then leave the room.  Offer to:
    • Wash up any dishes in the sink
    • Fill glasses with ice
    • Pour beverages
    • Cut the pies
  • Keep your children in tow.  In other words, keep them from destroying your host’s home.  Bring things for them to play with while the meal is being prepared and keep them out of the hostess’s way.  Teach them to respect the property of the host.  We recently had little ones in our home (2 and 4) and you hardly knew they were in the house.  They played with toys, chatted, obeyed their parents, and were a joy to entertain!
  • If you’re staying overnight, remove the sheets from the bed the morning you leave and fold them and stack them on the washer.  Remake the bed without the sheets and leave the room tidy.  Place wet towels and washcloths on the washer, too.
  • Let the hostess rise in the morning and have a few minutes to get things together for breakfast.  It’s nice to get the coffee going and breakfast laid out before guests are staring at you!  =)
  • Don’t stay longer than you’d arranged.  Leaving promptly is as gracious as arriving promptly.

Now if you’re going to be the hostess, here are a few reminders that will keep your guests wanting to return:

  • Have something your guests can snack on before the meal is ready.  Crackers and cheese, a veggie tray or chips and salsa would be great.
  • Be prompt with the mealtime.  If you invite your guests for dinner at 1:00 don’t be peeling the potatoes then.  The gravy should be ready to pour at 1:00.  There’s nothing worse than wondering when the meal is going to be ready.
  • Think ahead about who will be there.  If little ones are coming, make it as easy on the parents as you can.
    • Have a place for the children to sit so they’ll be comfortable and won’t have the parents worrying that they’re going to destroy your white covered dining room chairs.
    • Put away anything you don’t want broken.
    • Have a little stash of toys you can bring out for the children to play with.
    • Set a table just for the children.  Include crayons and coloring place mats and fun treats.
  • Provide snacks in the room for overnight guests.  Packages of crackers, granola bars and water bottles are sufficient.  Pieces of fruit would be nice, too.
  • Provide your Internet password for overnight guests.
  • Let them know exactly where the towels and washcloths are.  Keep your pretty “untouchable” towels stashed away.  Nothing like standing at the sink with drippy hands wondering which towel to use!
  • Have breakfast foods prepared and frozen.  The night before, put breakfast foods out so your guests can help themselves.  Set out coffee cups and creamers, too.
  • Make your home inviting by playing soft music and lighting candles.
  • Be interested in your guests.  Ask them questions and listen with caring ears.  Have prayer together before they leave.

I’ve had the blessing of having VERY gracious guests, and I’ve also been the recipient of VERY gracious hostesses.  Let’s each put our best foot forward and strive to be a blessing – no matter if we’re on the giving or receiving end of the Thanksgiving Day celebration!

Happy Thanksgiving to each of you!!!

With a grateful heart,

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Thanksgiving

Making the Most of Thanksgiving

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I was at the mall yesterday with some friends. There’s no doubt that Christmas preparations are in full swing!  Lights, trees, ornaments, and gift suggestions are at every entrance, doorway and shelf!  I have to admit that I’m really jumping into the Christmas excitement earlier than normal, but I’m making a decisive choice to stop today and just BE THANKFUL.

I’m making a list, too, but it’s not my Christmas list – it’s my thankfulness list.  I’m enumerating my blessings, one by one in my journal.

Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 5:20

Give thanks, when?

Always

For what?

All things

Every good gift comes from above – from God, and He will receive my thanks!

It would be easy to utter a simple prayer on Thanksgiving day and perhaps feel it was enough, but when I think about how MUCH my God has done, how much He has blessed, how much He has forgiven, and even the trials He’s brought me through, I am making a choice to name those blessings; to count them, one by one.

  • Doing this will make that list to be fresh on my mind when I enter our Pie and Praise service at church tonight.
  • I will be quick to recite my blessings on Thanksgiving day when we share our blessings with my family.
  • Making a list will make me full of praise to my God for all He has done.

When you write out your list, or record it on your phone, or type it up on your computer, you get past being thankful for family and friends, which are indeed things we can be thankful for.  But what about the way God has answered prayer for us?  What about how He moved in our lives and taught us His Word, convicted us of sin, or brought a person to the point of salvation, and delivered us in our trials?  Those blessings take some time to consider and remember.  As I pray, I will ask the Lord to bring to my mind specific things that I can add to my list.  I think it will be helpful to flip through my prayer journal and recount the things I’ve recorded there.

Can I encourage you to make your thankfulness list this week and go deeper than the surface things?  Thanksgiving is a really special day and goes far beyond the food.  It’s about really, truly giving thanks to our great God.

So before we jump headlong into our Christmas plans, decorations and activities, let’s stop to really consider all that we have to be thankful for, and acknowledge the One to Whom we must give thanks.

Count it out…one by one and it will be an unforgettable Thanksgiving.

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Holiday Muffins At the Top of the Baking List

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This is a repost of a recipe shared last year. This would be a wonderful muffin to have Thanksgiving morning and I wanted to remind you of its goodness!

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Baking is like many things – you have to stick to it and keep trying after you have a fail. Giving up because you’ve had a flop will keep you from making progress, and even learning lessons along the way. You’re seeing this recipe today after three previous attempts to post! It’s been frustrating, but hopefully someone will be really glad to have this recipe, or will be refreshed by the encouragement not to give up!

Since tomorrow is December the first (what?!), I thought I would share a holiday muffin recipe as my first recipe of the season. I made some Cranberry Streusel Muffins for Thanksgiving breakfast last week. It was a new recipe to me and I couldn’t wait to try them!  These were the perfect blend of tart and sweet. The crumbly topping on the top is oh, so good! We had a muffin with a bowl…

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friends

Friday Favorites – It Made Me Smile

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On this week prior to Thanksgiving, I have tried to stop and see the daily blessings the Lord brings.  How blessed I am!  I snapped pictures of some blessings.  These are things that just truly made me smile this week.

A full coffee drawer!  If you love the morning cup of coffee like we do, you know that good coffee is important!  We buy it up when it’s on sale.  Seeing this drawer full of coffee means lots of morning cups!  =)

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Call me strange, but I love it when my hardwood floors are shining.  It seems hard to keep them this way, but I’d rather have people coming in and leaving footprints than keeping it spotless! But it made me smile to see them clean on the morning I mopped them and snapped this picture. =)

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I love having my young Bible clubbers over any time we can get our schedules together.  This week I taught them the parable of the lost coin.  Does it melt your heart to think that the angels in heaven rejoice when ONE sinner repents and turns to Christ?  I’m thankful they rejoiced over me the day I got saved!  And for these two young ones to understand that Truth and then get to paint a picture about it brought a smile to my face and my heart! =)

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Here was my attempt at photographing the beautiful Super-moon we had this week.  This was the morning after.

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I love, love, love living in the mountains of Tennessee.  I snapped this while at a red light yesterday.  I thanked the Lord for the blessing of living somewhere that’s so beautiful! =)

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One of my sweet readers sent me the sweetest card and gift this week!  She and I met at a Ladies’ retreat I spoke at several years ago.  She started reading my blog, then contacted me and we’ve gotten to know one another via email!  I am so grateful for the friendships that have come as a result of my blog!  One reader visited our church this summer and then sent a precious card!  I love that, and smile every time I see those cards!  Thanks to each of you who read; I am encouraged by each of you that stop by!

How sweet is this Victorian card?  Look at the beautiful pin she sent!  I love it.  Thank you, my friend! =)

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So many things to be thankful for and to smile about!

What has made YOU smile this week?

I’m looking forward to a special weekend with several exciting events!  I’ll tell you about them next week!

Stay refreshed!

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Christian Life · ministry · Prayer

If It Hadn’t Been For the Lord…

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I am a perpetual list maker.  I always have been.  It makes my days run smoother.  It makes me see that I’ve accomplished something.

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But sometimes that habit becomes a stumbling block because it can cause me to run on “auto-pilot.”

Breaking that down, it simply means that I run on “Denise’s ability”  rather than God’s. 

Here’s how Denise’s list goes:

  • Blog post  – I get a “great idea” in my head and type it up without praying about it.
  • Make bread – I made our bread and freeze the other loaf without asking God with whom I could share the extra bread.
  • Grocery shopping – I buzz through the store, with little thought about having a Gospel conversation with a shopper who speaks to me.
  • Dry Cleaners – The worker looked worn and worried, but I didn’t ask how her day was going and how I could pray for her.

Everything got checked off, but it was done in my strength and with my limited abilities.  Nothing extraordinary happened as result.  Denise’s abilities revealed.

This week I read Psalm 124:1 -3

 If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, now may Israel say;

 If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when men rose up against us:

 Then they had swallowed us up quick…

Israel had victory and they could say, “If it hadn’t been for the Lord we would have been swallowed up by our enemy!  God interrupted their day!

That verse made me stop and ask myself – “What happened in my day yesterday that I would say, If hadn’t been for the Lord who was on my side things would have turned out much differently!”?  Did I look to the Lord to break in and interrupt my plans? Or did I do everything in my own strength instead?

Oh, that every day I would allow God to interrupt my plans.  It might look like this instead:

  • Blog post – “If it hadn’t been for the Lord, I wouldn’t have thought to post that!”
  • Bake Bread –“If it hadn’t been for the Lord, I would have missed meeting the new family up the street, but He reminded me I needed to take them a loaf of bread and introduce myself!”
  • Grocery Shopping – “If it hadn’t been for the Lord nudging me to invite the sweet lady at the store to my church, she may never have visited!”
  • Dry Cleaners – “If it hadn’t been for the Lord nudging me to pray with the worker at the dry cleaners, I never would have known that her husband was diagnosed with cancer recently.”

Do you see what a difference depending on and surrendering to the Lord makes in our day? His abilities are revealed! I have missed out on His blessings so many times, simply because I was not relying on His Spirit and power to work through me to do what only He can do.  How sad.How empty.

But today is a new day to surrender.

This situation is another opportunity to give my plans to Him!

Today’s list is another chance to see Him step in and do what only He can do!

What happened in your day yesterday that would make you say – “If it hadn’t been for the Lord THAT never would have happened!”?  How much of your day yesterday was empowered by the Spirit of God and how much was done in your own strength?  God wants to use us as His instruments, if we’ll only surrender our wills (and our lists!) to Him.

Thankful for His grace,

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