Book Review: The Reluctant Entertainer

Do you entertain as often as you'd like?  Do you feel inadequate at it?   To be honest, we don't have company over very often at our house (hello...I'm a party blogger!), and when we do, I kind of feel like I wasn't very good at it. My husband and I always find an excuse to push an invitation back, which many times turns into never. And of course, we're the ones who miss out and lose by doing this.

Therefore, I'm setting a new year's resolution to do better, and I've found The Reluctant Entertainer by Sandy Coughlin tremendously helpful in finding the encouragement to do so. This book has a lot of practical wisdom and real-world examples. Best of all, it's a super fast and easy read. I finished it in a week!

The book does a great job of addressing a variety of issues that keep us from having friends and loved ones over to our house, so we can overcome them. It helped me see that my biggest pitfall is perfectionism. When I can't make things perfect for whatever reason, I'd rather not entertain at all. This section from the book hit me like a ton of bricks:

"[My husband] told me, 'Perfectionism is a jail cell locked from inside, creating your own misery.' He explained that there is a huge difference between trying to be excellent at what you do and trying to be perfect at something. Excellence is working toward an attainable goal that benefits everyone, while perfection comes from a place of great need--usually the need to avoid criticism and gain praise and approval from others."

This was really an epiphany for me--the need to be perfect holds me back more than anything else.  It made me feel really sad to realize how vain I am, but at the same time, I feel like it is 100% so true. Sometimes you need a little tough love to help you move forward, and that's what the the chapter on perfectionism was for me!

My husband and I are now affectionately referring to this as the "Perfectionist Monster" and have discussed ways in which it prevents us from entertaining.  Last year, I really wanted to have a Cinco de Mayo party, but my full-time employer temporarily laid everyone off in April.  I got really depressed and dumped the party, when I probably could have used the distraction and company the most.  My loss!  I can think of a lot of examples from my life when I got scared by the Perfectionist Monster (my house wasn't spotless, no time to make a cutesy craft decoration, etc.), but I just didn't know that was the reason.

What's really great about the book is that you'll realize you naturally have strengths in some entertaining areas that are more difficult for others. I found this really encouraging! Sandy lays these out in her "Ten Commandments of Hospitality" and delves deeper into each one in chapters. I'm naturally strong at Commandments 2, 6, and 7, and while not a natural strength, I have always understood the importance of Commandment 1 and try to improve on this whenever I can.

Commandment 1
Hospitality is not about you. It's about making others feel warm and welcome.


Commandment 2
Plan ahead, be organized, and know your recipe. Learn to delegate.


Commandment 3
Set the mood. Keep ambiance and the five senses in mind.


Commandment 4
Avoid perfectionism. Put fear aside--it's a robber of anything good.


Commandment 5
Share conversation. Foster friendships by keeping things real.


Commandment 6
Demonstrate thriftiness. Buying things at cost or learning to pinch pennies makes entertaining attainable on a budget.


Commandment 7
Don't apologize. It's okay to make mistakes. Learn to not bring them to light in front of your guests; it robs your guests of relaxation.


Commandment 8
Be creative. Use what you have. Keeps things simple.


Commandment 9
Learn from others. Find mentors and learn to find a healthy balance and keep things real.

Commandment 10
Life impact is everything. Experience intimacy and meaning in sharing a meal and gleaning from others' lives.

If you're looking for ways in which you can break out of your reluctant entertainer shell, I highly recommend this book!  It's got a lot of great party ideas and recipes as a bonus, too. Sandy Coughlin also has a blog called Reluctant Entertainer.


Do you know what your entertaining strengths and weaknesses are? Let's talk in the comments here or on Facebook.


Related Blog Posts

• Graceful Hostess Tip: Never Say How Much Work Went into a Party (Similar to Commandment 7)
• Happy/Graceful Hostess Tip: Expect Things to Go Wrong (Related to Commandments 4 and 7)
  

Christmas Cookie Baking at Last

On "New Year's Eve" eve, I finally got to do some Christmas cookie baking!  This year, we were out of town every weekend from Thanksgiving up until Christmas, so our busy holiday season kept me from my baking.  Boy, did I make up for lost time, too! 

We celebrated a late Christmas with some out-of-town family on New Year's Eve, and I jumped at the opportunity to bring cookies.

Here's what I baked (clockwise from top):

• Russian Tea Cakes (secret family recipe)
• Chocolate Crackle Cookies (So fudgey and soft...I bet these would be superb served hot with ice cream)
• Oatmeal Toffee Cookies (I think I prefer just plain old oatmeal cookies.)
• Egg Nog Cookies from Your Cup of Cake (My new favorite cookie!!)
• Holiday Pretzel Kisses from Little Birdie Secrets (Cute and delicious...pictured below)

I was super surprised at how good these Holiday Pretzel Kisses were!  I wanted to make them because they looked so cute, but I honestly expected them not be not so good.  They were very yummy...it's a shame that they don't sell Candy Cane Kisses all year, so I could make them for different occasions throughout the year with different colored M&Ms on top.

I came up with a baking innovation this weekend, too!  I got this utility cart for Christmas from my husband, and it has been so handy to have over the last couple of weeks.  It made an awesome cooking rack for my millions of cookies.  I used up all of my cookie sheets in this baking session (and I have a lot), so I don't know where I could have put them all to cool without this rack.

Do you have any good cookie recipes I should put on my To-Bake List?

Happy New Year!

Wishing you a 2011 rich in blessings!

Thanks for making Belly Feathers' 2010 so wonderful! Looking forward to another great year of sharing fun party ideas and entertaining tips with you.

Like Belly Feathers on Facebook

Thanks so much for being a loyal reader of the Belly Feathers Party Blog! I'd love you have you join my community on Facebook, too.

I share lots of exclusive content on Facebook.com/BellyFeathers, including never-before-seen project photos and fun ideas from my favorite entertaining blogs and websites. Plus, you'll get to interact with members of the Belly Feathers community from around the world, who love parties as much as we do. Please stop by and hit the like button.

If you don't use Facebook, you can still see the exclusive ideas by selecting the Wall tab at Facebook.com/BellyFeathers.

Holiday Disasters

I'm still in recovery from a big Christmas disaster at our house.  I'm not sure I've found the hostess wisdom or lesson learned from this situation, except that maybe laughter is the best medicine and sometimes even the best planning can't help you. I'll recount the story in the hopes it will bring you some laughs.

 Post-disaster Happy Times at the Pruitt House

On Christmas Eve, my husband and I always prepare a special dinner for my father-in-law and any of my family that might be visiting.  This year, my husband and I decided to keep it simple (HA!) by cutting down on the dishes we would make since there would just be three of us.  The menu consisted of a cranberry salsa appetizer (delicious!!!), roast prime rib with horseradish crust, potato gratin in a rosemary crust, roasted green beans, and a cream cheese pound cake with whipped cream and strawberries for dessert.

I got up early and made the pound cake, so it would have plenty of time to cool.  I used a sunflower pan and was going to pretend it was a poinsettia for Christmas.  It came out perfectly.

When my husband got up, we were synchronized cleaning and menu prepping like you wouldn't believe!  We've had enough practice that we can work super efficiently with very little communication. That morning, I even thought what a great team we make and how lucky I am.

We had made a preparation schedule of when to begin assembling each dish and what time they needed to go in the oven in order to have everything on the table at 7:00 pm for dinner. We were a little ahead of schedule when we started working on the potato gratin by rolling out the crusts, shredding the cheese, and chopping the rosemary.

I got out my new (never-been-used) Pampered Chef springform pan for the potatoes. It has a glass bottom for more attractive oven-to-table presentation (just my style).  I decided I should flip the glass in the pan, so that the smooth side was inside the pan and the textured side would be face down.  Standing in the center of the kitchen, I loosened the springform just a little, and the glass dropped to the floor.  DISASTER BEGINS!!!

I was so glad my husband and I instinctively closed our eyes because glass flew everywhere.  I've never seen anything break like this with glass bouncing up super high and landing so far in distance. This was way more than a mess on the floor!  There was glass on every surface in the kitchen: counter tops, kitchen table, in the burners of the stove...EVERYWHERE!  Our pantry is down the hall, and even though the door was closed, there was glass in there.  Despite our closed floor plan, glass had gotten in the dining room next door, too.

This holiday disaster literally took the cake! My sunflower/poinsettia cake, still sitting on its cooling rack, was sprinkled with glass shards and had to be trashed, along with the rolled pie crusts for the potato gratin and the freshly shredded cheese.  All food in the kitchen was contaminated. I didn't even get to taste the pound cake before it went in the garbage.

We stayed cool and calm and agreed that since we were about an hour ahead of schedule, my husband would have time to run to Target for more pie crusts, a new springform pan with a METAL BOTTOM, and more cheese.  As I began cleaning alone, I started to realize the scope of the disaster was WAY WORSE than our initial assessment, as I found glass in more and more places.  Every surface had to have its contents removed and wiped down.  It took sweeping the floor three times and vacuuming once to feel pretty good about the safety of the floor. 

By the time my husband got back from Target on the craziest shopping day of the year (it wasn't a quick trip like we thought), I still had lots of decontaminating to go, and now, we were behind schedule.  As you can imagine, I was feeling pretty exhausted and discouraged. The loss of our Christmas Eve dessert was particularly disappointing to me. I even suggested we just forget cooking all together and go out to eat that night instead.  Ultimately, we decided to have mashed potatoes instead of the potato gratin, since I could make those pretty easily while the prime rib was in the oven. We put out some Pepperidge Farms Christmas cookies with our cranberry salsa appetizer for munching, deciding that would be good enough for dessert, too.

The mental and physical exhaustion continued to impact me as we continued preparing the food, though.  For example, I spilled a whole cup of sugar for the cranberry salsa down the counter top and onto the floor (later, I realized I had a bunch of sugar in the pocket of my apron from the episode, too, which is pretty funny).  This caused me to start playing it ultra safe....I was too worried to pull out any of the China pieces for the dinner in case I might drop them, so we just used serving pieces that were easily accessible.  I didn't have time to iron my tablecloth either.  As a result, our table was a little mismatchy and plain looking.

When it was time to sit down to eat, all of the days dysfunction melted right away, as my husband and I decided not to mention what had happened at all to my father-in-law. The food was all delicious!  My husband, Roger, did a wonderful job with the prime rib.

I'm sure this will go down in our family's history as a funny Christmas Eve, but as for right now, I'm still a little tender from the disaster. We did get a super special surprise the next morning: a WHITE CHRISTMAS!  It really helped make things feel all better for Christmas day. We live in Alabama, so that's super rare for us to get snow at all.  Here's our house covered in snow.

Have you have had any big holiday disasters at your house?  Any entertaining disasters in general?  I would love to hear about them!  Let's have group therapy!  ( ;

Christmas Present Wrapping

I really love wrapping presents and, especially, adding hand-stamped tags and little embellishments like jingle bells or Christmas ornaments. Here are some of the Christmas presents that I've wrapped lately, along with the handmade gift tags I've made for them.

See even more pictures on my Facebook page. While you're there, hit "Like" and become a fan!

Have a very Merry Christmas!

This post was shared at

Wrapping Paper Scraps: A Husband's Dream

Here's one of my favorite present wrapping tips: create a bag of wrapping paper scraps. As I cut wrapping paper off the big rolls, I save the leftover pieces after wrapping a gift and roll them up inside of a recycled shopping bag for later use on smaller gifts.

 
My husband thinks this is the best present wrapping innovation EVER because it saves him so much time when wrapping presents. He can just hunt around in the bag for a scrap about the size of the gift he needs to wrap.  He probably wraps 90% of his gifts out of this bag. The littlest scraps are usually perfect for small stocking stuffers. (At our house, we usually wrap about half of the items inside our Christmas stockings.)

I try to keep the bag organized with Christmas wrapping paper on one side and paper for birthdays and other occasions on the other side.  I used a smaller recycled shopping bag inside the big one to help keep them separate.  It's also helpful if you can find a big shopping bag with long handles, so you can carry the bag even if you have long scraps inside.  I hang my bag on a hook in my craft closet when not in use, so the long handles are great for that, too.

Do you have any present wrapping tips to share?