Monday, June 08, 2009

Hospitality

There is not much else that I love as much as having people over for dinner and being able to spend time with them. I have no doubt I would do it more often and I suppose as the kids get older I probably will. I don't think I will go as far as my Aunt in Maine, whom I never see, who built her home for the sole purpose of having people over but I suppose I have the 'love of cooking and seeing other people enjoy themselves gene.'

Believe it or not we have very little family. We see my parents quite often as they only live an hour away and they too have been at many a function with an extra ten to twenty or more people at it. Fortunately we have many friends who I think enjoy our company and we love theirs so they are our adopted family. The other people who are actually family have limitations that prevent them from coming so from the time left in the craziness of raising our children and managing their schedules, we go to see Charley's parents a few times a year.

Hospitality itself is a way to be able to share something of myself with others and to be able to enjoy them too. It is hard for people to really know much of anything about a mom of eight if their perception is clouded by my running to change diapers or feed or quiet an infant. How can anyone get to know me on that basis? I love opportunities to get to know them better too so why not create them? If we overwhelm others then the problem is solved by having others come to me. Ironically, most of my friends also have lots of kids so for those friends what is eight, ten, fifteen extra anyway? (No - I am not fishing for an invitation from them to have my whole family over -they already do that themselves from time to time).

The other thing about hospitality is that I want my children to be able to think outside themselves as they move on to their own lives and families. Hospitality is a lost art I think. It is especially lost as far as people considering having not just parents of friends over but their children too. Why would a person ever THINK to have a family with a whole bunch of kids over anyway???? That would be crazy (sarcasm). I will have to post the pictures from Erik's bday party last fall where there were mobs of kids in our field playing games or at least trying to.

Thank you friends for putting up with me and thank you that you come to my not always pristinely cleaned home with a hairy dog that lives here and eyes your children's sandwiches. I love my family family, but I also love my adopted family. Too bad that responsibility thing stands in the way of not partying more. :o)

9 comments:

Rev. Rick Stuckwisch said...

Thank you for your hospitality, Karin.

Susan said...

Oh, Karin, I so know what you're talking about. I love to feed people, and I know our family size intimidated a lot of people from having us over, so I would just have them over instead. After all, what's 6 more???

But since we've moved, that's changed. It's so hard for me to accept. There are people I want to have over, but they just won't fit into our little house. And we had to get rid of so many toys and things when we moved, that I'm not sure how it would work to be hospitable to a family of 10 now. And then you throw in the financial situation and thinking about feeding double or triple the amount of people, and it's really making me ache to not be able to invite people over as much as I'm longing to do.

Karin said...

I feel for you on the size of house issue. It has been expressed to me by others that their house size is a limiting factor. At least Charley has made our downstairs living area large to accomadate extra people. Finishing the garage was the best thing we ever did here. The outside is very accomadating too here so.....this post is in no way either admonishing anyone to accomadate our family but I still think even having adults over is becoming a lost art. Everyone goes out to eat more then having people over. My kids love your family Susan (you are in our prayers btw - tried to post on your blog and it didn't work). Gelbachs are synonymous with fun. :o) We would love to have YOU and YOURS here too! Looking forward to seeing you at CCA! Anna, Ingrid and I will be there this year.

Susan said...

Only three of you are coming? Oh well. I was hoping for more of a Horner fix. But three is better than nothing!
Thanks for the condolences.
See you next week!

Karin said...

You are ever so sweet. We have TONS of stuff going on in the next few weeks with kids leaving and coming so decided that most would stay home. Matthew was tempted to be a last minute add on but he will be gone for over a week soon afterwards. Charley's plate is overflowing with stuff around the house that needs done so....he's staying home with the rest. I still want him to come some year and go to the microphone for the question time and ask some deep philosophical engineering question just to throw them off guard. :o) What we really should do to help people like Charley is to host a bare bones Cathechesis seminar to help those who are not quite able to handle as much theology at a time. He was sort of overwhelmed and got lost quite a bit. I loved it and ate it up. Sigh. Life is complicated. I love CCA. Erik too would have liked to go. Maybe next year we will bring everyone and freak people out. Is this a comment???? Or another post.

Kim said...

Having people over is a lost art because families aren't as close as they used to be. People are always on the go so they don't have the opportunity to make close friends. Kids don't play together because their lives are so scheduled and it's just not safe to allow them to play out of sight. Since the kids don't play together the parents don't meet and friendships don't blossom.
We don't have any close friends, we tried being friends with another couple that is childless but our lives and priorities were just too different for it to last very long.
I don't know that I would ever be comfortable having someone at our house anyway, it's always a mess and is too small to comfortably contain our own family let alone any visitors!

Karin said...

Kim - I hear what you are saying. I suppoe hospitality is something I can actually do and there are people who are fine with spending time with us. Emmaus is just too good to be true. Hospitality is the knitting I can not get to right now :o). I enjoy both but having people over for dinner is a lot easier then keeping track of projects etc. Does that make sense? If you are ever in the area DO stop by! We would love to get to know you better. No horses here but I could drive you to a friends house. :o)

Linda-PA Mom of 3 said...

Karin, you and your family have always been hospitable to us. We loooove to visit you guys and we love it when you come to PA. Just wish we were closer...

Linda-PA Mom of 3 said...

Karin,

One of my favorite parties is when Andrew was 2 1/2 weeks old, in the heat of August, that we had over 60 people for a Baptism Open House. You can get thru any hosting if your heart is in the right place....