helping guests feel at home

I hope y’all had a wonderful time last week with family, friends, or whomever you celebrate your holidays with! I was originally going to just take one day off from blogging last week, but ended up taking two and it was much needed with all the craziness of last minute Christmas prep.

Part of that busyness was getting ready for some house guests that would be joining us for our holiday gathering. Our kids were really excited about their aunt and uncle staying with us, but in our little house preparing for house guests is no small task. Someday it’s my dream to have a lovely, dedicated guest room. Until then we just make do the best we can. We have a couple of factors that really help us out. One of those being that our kids love having sleepovers together and love sleeping in sleeping bags even more, so having the three older ones all pile into the same bedroom works great. Our big guy has a great bed from Ikea that can transform from fitting one twin mattress to fitting two twin mattresses, so typically we just do some rearranging and his room turns into a pretty nice guest room.

That being said, I still like to try to make it a special experience for our guests and there are several ways that you can make your guests feel more at home and make a stay away from their home more enjoyable for them (because we all know there’s no place like home, right?). I left a fresh stack of towels in the room with a little tag that would hopefully make them smile after their long drive. If you’d like to print some up for your next guests, you can snag your free printable //here//!

I also put together a hot chocolate station for the kitchen counter so that anyone would feel like they could help themselves to a warm beverage whenever they wanted. I don’t know why I hadn’t done this sooner. 

Here are some more ideas for helping your guests feel more at home:

• Consider leaving a small stack of magazines, books, puzzles, or games in the room.
• If they have small children, plug in a nightlight. Even if children aren’t afraid of the dark, it can help you find your way in unfamiliar surroundings.
• Make sure there are extra blankets and install a ceiling fan. Just kidding! But seriously, a big part of comfort is making sure that they are a comfortable temperature, however you can accomplish that.
• If they’re staying for more than a couple days, try to give them some drawer and closet space.
• Leave them an area map or guide book in their room. Even in our age of tablets and smart phones, sometimes it’s just fun to flip through actual pages. If you’re a AAA member, you can pick these up free at your local branch office (and I’m assuming your CAA offices as well for my Canadian readers).
• If you have a dedicated guest room that doesn’t get used much, make sure that the room and the bed are freshly aired so they don’t smell stale.
• Have your children color signs or cards that can adorn their room when they arrive.
• Leave some toiletries in the bathroom. I always save travel sized ones from when we stay in hotels and keep those in our guest bathroom. #frugallife

Did you have any out-of-town guests this past week?