We all love our family and seeing them can be a great time as you catch up. However, it can be a stressful time when they are all coming over to visit. In this guide, we explore 3 tips to get you ready for hosting a family occasion at your home.
1. Planning
Your home can be your safe place where you can be yourself and not have to think about others as you are in comfort. It can be a stressful time if you are busy or have other responsibilities to maintain and do the upkeep of your house, it is completely normal for your house to look like a mess until you get around to doing a tidy and clean up. But when family is coming over you can start to feel the pressure to make sure your house is perfect and has no flaws. The best thing to do before you do anything is to plan. When are they coming round? How long will they be staying? Where will they be staying? All these are important questions you should ask yourself before doing anything. When you are planning, you should consider writing up a to-do list so that you can keep on top of everything. You can find ideas at the Israeli Center of Judaica website (https://israelicenterofjudaica.com/).
2. Clean and organize
Cleaning and organizing can be a daunting task no matter the size of your house or flat. It is amazing when you realize how many things you own and sometimes never even use. When cleaning, you should tackle different rooms for each day depending on how much time you have, as facing and finishing one room before moving on to the next helps you get it done quicker. If you jump around different rooms, then this will be more stressful as you will not feel any satisfaction from any room being finished. Before anyone comes around it is best to give your home a thorough cleaning beforehand. When you tidy up rooms and leave them in perfect condition then it will be less stressful when the guests arrive and see the house.
An important thing to prioritize is to make sure bathrooms are spotless as this is one thing all the guests will be continuing to use. If you declutter as needed, then there will be more space for people and their belongings.
3. Food
Like any family, there could be some picky eaters or just some food that people don’t like. Something to look out for is if there are any vegetarians or vegans in your family as this can restrict what they can eat when getting food served. The food is an important part of when people come over as you will need to think about dietary requirements as allergies are quite common. This means you might need to tweak and adapt some meals so that everybody will be enjoying their meal. You could try to include some family favorites but also have options for different diets and tastes and if you have the time, then you could start to prepare some in advance.
