How often do you entertain?

[zoebartlett]

A friend of mine entertains quite often, and when she was telling me about her latest party, I couldn't help but think that it sounded exhausting to always be "on" for guests. This one friend is obviously very social so it works for her, and she loves having people over.

How about you? How often do you entertain? What type of entertaining do you do (dinner parties, backyard BBQs, luncheons, etc.)?

 

[Tacori E-ring]

ummm....pretty much never. Maybe twice a year.

 

[mrscushion]

Me, neither. It would cost me a lot of energy, and I work so much that I love my one-on-one time with FI.

That said, perhaps when we move into our new apartment after the wedding and have some nice stuff to show off from our registry, we'll do it more often.

Edited for grammar.

 

[zoebartlett]

Yeah, we don't either, actually. I'm having friends over tomorrow for lunch, and that should be a fun time. If the weather's nice, we'll head to the pool afterwards. A lot of our friends are allergic to cats, so they can't come to our house. I wish we could entertain more often though. I love to have people over, but once the school year starts, I don't have as much time as I do in the summer. The other thing is that most of our friends live anywhere from 30 min. to 2+ hours away. We're so spread out, so getting together on a regular basis isn't really doable.

A friend of mine from work had a dessert party once, and that was really fun. Everyone brought a different dessert, and she served coffee, tea, and wine. We go to friends' houses for BBQs occasionally in the summer, and that's always fun, too.

 

[purselover]

DH and I entertain all the time- at least once a week is normal. We usually do either brunch, dinner or just a cocktail party with a few close friends. A few times a year especially around the holidays we do larger dinner and cocktail parties for 15-20 guests. I must say our entertaining skills are pretty famous in our circle we have a very extensive bar and always go above and beyond for our guests. Honestly we don't really find it exhausting DH loves being around people and I love using my new found cooking and baking skills. I especially love that DH will take care of the clean up!

 

[kenny]

I'm an introvert so entertaining sucks the life out of me though it does hold a little pleasure too.
Maybe once a year average.

I once heard that extroverts get their batteries charged by being around people and drained by being alone.
Introverts are just the opposite.

 

[Ninna]

Frecuently, specially now that we are so much closer to family/friends.
We do 1 holiday and 2 B-day lunches in winter. Outdoors is pretty busy from June-November, about 2-3 simple reciprocal BBQ's kids included, 3-4 family gatherings [Dad cooks everything!], 1 card game [dh brings colleagues], the rest are pretty much woking outdoors or just fixing something simple & yummy together [11 ladies taking a break from the kids]. I Love sharing

 

[kittybean]

Every other week, on average. We have stepped up our entertaining quite a bit since we moved into our new house and have a great space for it. We have quite a few dinner parties, but we've had a poker tournament, a graduation party, and a couple cocktail parties over the last few months.

 

[Lilac]

DH and I entertain 2-3 times a month (we have 4 or 5 couples over for Sabbath dinner or lunch). It's expensive and exhausting, but it's nice to spend time with friends. People in our particular community on average entertain 2-3 times a month (usually on the Sabbath). I always end up cooking WAY too much food and it's very time-consuming, so I have a feeling once I start grad school next month our entertaining might decrease...

 

[junebug17]

I hardly ever have people over, it's just too stressful and exhausting for me. I host family dinners a few times a year and that's about it.

 

[Autumnovember]

Almost every weekend. SO has a lot of brothers and some of them are younger and do not have their own places yet so we all hang out together on weekend nights. My friends come visit from Philly once in a while too.

 

[April20]

We go thru phases. There will be a three month stretch where we have people over a couple times a month- anywhere from 15 to 50 people. Then we won't entertain for a months. The last time we entertained was the beginning of July. We've just been too busy the last few weeks and with us moving, I don't see it happening again for quite some time. Just too much going on.

I love to entertain though. I get a little crazy if we don't have regular interaction with our friends. We have a great group of friends that we do a once a month ethnic food night. It's generally at a restaurant, though occassionally it will be at someone's home and we all bring something. The person in charge of planning rotates every month- we decide at the current event who does it the next month. It's the highlight of the month and doesn't put pressure on any one person every month to plan it. We probably have 15 people every month that participate.

 

[Tuckins1]

We have our good friends over almost every week... But they don't have their own house right now, so we can't really go hang out over there. We never have really big parties. Once or twice we did it for new years. I don't really like having lots of people over because I can't enjoy myself when i'm saying (in my head) "Don't leave that garbage there! Damn it, now i'm gonna have to scrub the floor again! Use a coaster! Your leaving water marks on the counter!...."

 

[Hera]

Not often anymore. When I lived on the beachfront with a deck over the beach sand, people would visit all the time (even uninvited). Like Kenny, I'm an introvert and can only take so much visiting with people because they drain the life out of me.

 

[Haven]

I love to entertain! When I was little I used to plan "dinner parties" for my parents' friends, complete with invitations, place cards, little gifts for each person, and "homemade" dishes. (I think I served microwaved eggs once. What? I wasn't allowed to use the stove.)

We entertain a lot. Our fixed events are:
- Sunday night family dinners, with between four and fifteen guests. Depends on the weather, and the time of year. We will occasionally go out or order in, but I usually cook or DH grills.
- Wednesday night dinner and crafts with my niece and nephew and my FIL. My BIL joins us every now and then.
- Book club meeting at my house one Friday per month, with between five and eight guests.
- UFC parties one Saturday a month. We PPV the event and have everyone over to watch. If the card isn't great we'll go out to watch it at a bar, though.
- Kids' sleepovers--We have a group of kids in our family and close circle of friends over about twice a summer for a huge sleepover. We go bananas, make a ton of crafts, watch movies and pig out on popcorn, that sort of thing.
- Father's Day Brunch, seven to twelve guests, depending on whether my aunt and uncle are in town.
- APPLE FEST in October! My favorite event of the year. We have about 50 people total, but it lasts all day so there are times when there are only about 20 people here.
- Passover Seder. I think I have around 16 guests for that each year.
- Thanksgiving every other year, 15 to 25 guests depending on that aunt and uncle.
- We have all the family kids over for Halloween. I make a ton of fun treats that look like body parts, we carve pumpkins, and then we trick or treat together. I live on the longest street in the world, and there are no cross-streets for the majority of it, so our entire town flocks over here for trick or treating. There are literally HUNDREDS of people here on Halloween, so it's just a lot of fun to be around to watch it all happen, so everyone likes coming over.
- We threw a NYE party at our place for 2010. Our group didn't have any plans, and we just decided to go for it. Our friends nominated us to be the party house for NYE from now on, and I'm all about that!

We do a lot of other little impromptu things like dinners with friends and drinks at our place before we go out. We live really close to a great outdoor music venue, so we have people over all summer long for drinks and appetizers before the shows. And then we run a shuttle bus back and forth for everyone! We're having two couples over for dinner in two weeks, for example, stuff like that. I think a big part of it has to do with where we live, we're in a great little town and my friends who live a ways away often come here for cultural events, so there's always an excuse to arrange a get together. I've had a lot of coffee dates with friends this summer, too, because they pop in before they head out to the Botanic Garden for their morning walk. So fun!

My husband is a saint. We really have the entertaining thing down--he knows what I need him to do to help get the house in order, and he's amazing at cleaning things up as the event progresses. I've shared about his coaster obsession before--the night before every big event he goes around the house peppering all of our wooden furniture with coasters. He's great, though, and we work well together to pull off each event.

ETA: Whoa. I didn't realize how often we have people over.
That's okay--we make up for it by being homebodies most of the time.

 

[yssie]

Right now, absolutely none - we just don't have the space for it! We do plan to once we buy a house, though, though neither of us enjoys being around large crowds of acquaintances we both hold close friends and family near and dear, and love to have everyone together every so often.

That inherently caps the number, though - maybe, ten, twelve people at once, max?

 

[packrat]

Once a year we have a bbq, and we do it when my brother comes home on leave. Last year we did it 3 times b/c he came home twice extra. This year will be twice extra b/c he gets out and comes HOME next month and his girlfriend comes back from Afghanistan in November and is moving here, so more parties. But, then once they get settled in they'll do one and we'll do one every year.

 

[Octavia]

Very rarely, and it makes me sad. I'd love to have a brunch or dinner party every couple weeks, but it never seems to work out. Nobody in our social circle entertains much (we all just go out), and aside from that, many of our friends have infants and toddlers, so I know it's hard for them. And our place is tiny, not set up for entertaining at all...but I'd still figure out a way to make it work if there was more interest in it...

 

[Dancing Fire]

men or women???

 

[artdecogirl]

We love to entertain but it is more on a large scale then small dinner parties, we have 2-3 large parties a year, always spring and fall parties with 50+ guests and growing and then often we will host a christmas thing or thanksgiving. Then we do small stuff about once every 1-2 months. We are planning the fall party now and I am getting sooo excited!

 

[rosetta]

Once a year max. I find it too much hassle and eat out with friends much more often.

 

[elrohwen]

Hardly ever! Parties are just so much work - have to clean the whole house top to bottom, set everything up, cook all the food, clean the house afterwards. Oh, and pick a date and hope everyone can actually make it on that date. We try to invite all of our local friends (usually ends up being about 15 people) over once a year. Our parties are casual - some appetizers set out, sometimes we'll grill burgers or make pizza or something and everybody brings dessert or other food.

Sometimes I'd like to hold smaller dinner parties, with just one or two other couples, but we just end up going out to dinner with them instead.

We're also the outliers - we live 30 min east of work, while most of our friends live near work, or even up to 30 min north (so almost 60min from us). Since they all live relatively near each other, it makes more sense for them to throw parties and us to attend. When we actually have parties, everyone whines about how far away we are

 

[jaysonsmom]

I love cooking for people, and since my husband and kids are not big foodies, I cook for other people all the time.

Depends on what entertaining entails....We have my brother and his wife over every weekend for Sunday dinner, and when my sister-in-law and her husband were living close by they'd come over too, so it'd be 3 couples including ourselves.

For bigger parties (buffet style) I do it about once every other month. I love to host because I want to make all the food. Even when we are invited to potluck style events I have a hard time making only one thing to bring, sometimes I end up bringing 3 or 4.

 

[Haven]

Hardly ever! Parties are just so much work - have to clean the whole house top to bottom [ . . . ]

I like to tell DH that all the entertaining we do is good for us, because it keeps the house super clean all the time!

 

[NewEnglandLady]

I wouldn't call what I do "entertaining". I love to cook, but if I'm having someone over I prefer to just do something quick so I don't stress and can enjoy their company.

When we were house hunting our realtor would always say "this space would be great for entertaining!" and my husband and I would pass each other one of those knowing glances. I finally just told her that my cooking was awful and we had no friends, so entertaining wasn't at the top of the priority list, haha.

 

[soocool]

During the summer once or twice, including Father's Day and then another day to invite friends from a distance we haven't seen in a while.

During the fall and winter we do movie nights with a few friends and alternate homes, and sometimes we have friends who come down to visit from upstate Pa and NY (they come for the fall festivals) and make sure we have them over for a nice meal and lots of conversation.

DD usually has her friends over on Friday or Saturday nights eating pizza and roasting masrmallows over the backyard firepit. Best investment we ever made was buying that firepit!

 

[Kaleigh]

A lot during the summer when we are in Nantucket. But not a ton at home. We do love going out to dinner with friends.. But don't enjoy hosting parties at the house, not sue why.. Too much work??

 

[Luckyeshe]

I use to entertain a lot more when I was younger. It was 2x a month, and then it waned to once a month, and now I'm at once every quarter. Even I had more time, it'd be mroe often though.

 

[lyra]

Never. Tis a life sucking, energy draining thing. Mostly, we just have never liked this house and it's been under constant renovating for 8 years. Not exactly built for entertaining either, the rooms are all too small. We used to entertain every month when we were younger. BIL always has had the biggest house, so they always did all the family entertaining for all the holidays.