Reasons Why My Family Doesn't Deserve Me or I Traveled 3,000 Miles For THIS?

 Being away from home around the holidays can be a confusing and frightening experience. A good host is compassionately aware of this and will go to any lengths to ensure that his/her guest is comfortable. I've learned a LOT about being a kind and gracious hostess on this particular trip. Please indulge me as I share some hospitality tips so that you, too, will be able to make your guest feel special.

1. How you pick up your guest from the airport sets the tone for the entire visit. Remember that your traveler has been uncomfortably squeezed into insufficient airplane seating for HOURS and it is your responsibility to ensure your friend doesn't suffer from painful leg cramping. As your traveler exits Terminal 2, cheerfully call them up and explain that you're stuck at Terminal 1 and that the walk will do your guest good.

2.  Atmosphere is an often-over-looked but critical feature in establishing a warm and welcoming environment. Resist turning up (or even turning ON) the heat as rapid and constant shivering will tire out your guest...helping them to get a good night's sleep in this strange location. Bonus: Shivering also helps burn away those pesky trip calories!

3.  If not adjusting the heat settings doesn't seem like enough, you could go over-the-top by cracking several windows in the apartment and then helpfully inform your guest that it's a preventative measure against the very-real possibility of carbon monoxide poisoning. This is another helpful sleepy-time maneuver as your guest can now lull him/herself to sleep counting the minutes left before impending death.

4.  Number 4 dates back to ancient gladiator times when sock wrestling was still popular.  Apparently, when one gladiator went down in the arena, the other gladiators would wait hopefully to see if the emperor wanted the fallen hero's socks as a souvenir or not. Should the emperor's thumb point down, the remaining gladiators would leap into action, battling one another over this much-anticipated sock acquisition. While this fun tradition seems to have faded over the centuries, an intuitive hostess will fondly rekindle the sock-fueled rage one feels when a guest dares to wear socks to bed...particularly ankle socks which apparently have no heat-value whatsoever and therefore are deemed unacceptable (and dare one say dramatic?) as an apparatus to fend off the cold.

5.  Feeding your guest is over-rated and, honestly, selfish. Forcing your friend to consume unwanted calories (and nutrients) just so you can receive compliments is abhorrent. So what if your guest has trekked three thousand miles and only just managed to choke down a stale airplane biscotti biscuit over the past six hours? Let's say, hypothetically, that your guest customarily only consumes string cheese, blueberry yogurt, coconut-pineapple water and M&Ms. Under NO circumstances are you to have ANY of these items in your apartment. It would be unconscionably cruel to cater to such unreasonable requests. If you MUST feed your guest, it is recommended that you provide a half-cooked Toaster Strudel that is still frozen in the middle as it will aid in digestion. Tepid water is also suggested as it will be frozen by morning. Cracking through that thin icy layer is comparable to tapping the hardened sugar crust on a creme brulee only with fewer calories. Your guest will thank you!

• 5.a. The importance of small, thoughtful gestures cannot be minimized. Pulling a warm string cheese wand from your purse at brunch like a magician pulling a bunny from a hat will amuse and entertain your guest who, thanks to you, had just recently learned to appreciate the little things...like half-frozen Toaster Strudels, heat, and sleep.
• 5.b. Providing your guest with daily, mind-boosting brain exercises is another thoughtful way to show you care. Hiding little delicacies, like cream for the coffee, is an easy way to elevate your guest's mood. Those three drops of creamer that you left in the bottle will be sure to evoke a giggle from your guest. And encouraging hope is a necessary part of being human. "Didn't I see that you had some left-over whipping cream?" your guest might ask. You regretfully shake your head. "I'm afraid I threw it away," you say, not sorry at all. You are, in fact, building up your guest's frustration-level so as to better prepare her for life's little disappointments. You are such a dear. Faced with black coffee, obviously your guest would rather die or bite into a Pepto caplet (See #7)...but, out of no where, here comes our little pal, Hope, again! "Oh, I forgot," you say, obviously NOT forgetting, "I placed it carefully ON TOP of the garbage. Look...it's not touching anything critically-trashy." Here is where you test the desperation-ratio of your guest as well as her level of self-respect.

6.  Prolonging your guest's exhaustion is a handy little tip in helping to bolster a person's critical thinking skills, good humor, and over-all mood. Let's say, hypothetically, that your guest had spent the ENTIRE week leading into Christmas break "teaching" 4th graders which had included class parties, assemblies, concerts, theme dressing days and departed for her trip AFTER school on Friday...dodged a pooping Pomeranian at the airport, had gum snapped at her by a saucy little cashier who sassed, "You ain't from around here, are ya?" when your guest DARED to buy a Pepsi at a southern airport, endured not one but TWO barfing infants on the plane, ignored her husband's advice to wear a warm wrap because, after-all, she was already wearing a sweater (Also said in a semi-sassy way...regretfully), choked on a stale biscotti biscuit, made it to San Diego to discover that she needed to walk from Terminal 2 over to Terminal 1, was welcomed into an ice-cold apartment, starved to death...but then...blissfully...crawled into bed (after having her socks forcibly removed from her frozen feet), only to have her hostess engage in a three-hour discourse detailing the hard-to-detect symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning.

• 6.a. Keeping your guest's mind sharp with the unknown origins of an obscure movie quote in the middle of the night with a three-hour time differential is also fun. "Come ba-aa-ack...come ba-aa-ack..." is also a disturbing mantra that conjures up under-the-bed demons and mirror monsters. "It was a woman," one might muse at one o'clock (four o'clock EST)..."she needs help." An hour later...genre speculation begins. "A western, maybe? I think she was laying prone on the ground." By the third hour, this exercise will have transformed into a fun team-building activity. "Shut up! Let me think! I just need to meditate on this!" "I think meditation actually AVOIDS the thinking process." "Shut up!"
• 6.b. Cuddling your guest really reflects your level of devotion. "Flip over," you might suggest in a non-bossy tone at two o'clock in the morning (five o'clock EST) while your guest lies awake, afraid of dying from either carbon monoxide poisoning or demon possession, her brain running at 1,000 miles a minute as she tries to figure out which movie featured a character croaking out "Come ba-aa-ack...come ba.aa.ack." When your guest doesn't immediately cooperate, you graciously flip her over yourself so that she can be spooned properly like the old couple in The Notebook. "More like the old couple in Titanic," your guests corrects before yelling, "Wait! That's it! Titanic! It's from Titanic!" At this point  (three o'clock am/six o'clock am EST), you realize that it takes way too much energy to spoon so you flip your guest (and her cold feet) back to her original position.
• 6.c. Honesty is crucial in the host/house-guest relationship. Late-night confessions are best. Let's say, hypothetically, that you only had time, in the six months that you knew that your guest was scheduled to arrive, to wash only ONE pillow case. And let's also say, hypothetically, that by some strange, quirk of fate, that the hostess ended up...in this weird wacky Russian roulette of wayward laundry linens...with the only CLEAN pillow case. It will soothe your cold, starving, over-tired guest to learn about this at approximately four o'clock am (seven o'clock am EST).

7. Now...despite the careful dietary food restrictions that you so thoughtfully imposed upon your
guest, digestive discomfort may still occur. You might find that some of your guests have developed an unhealthy dependency on a certain type on antacid, such as Tums. It's in their best interest to cut this curative cord and mix it up a little. Your guest might initially be resistant. "What is this? My

Pepto at home is in liquid form." A lip curl accompanied by a grimace indicates that you might have a chance of getting your guest to take what's best for her voluntarily. A snarl and a swear word is a good sign that you may have to pin her to the floor first. A Pepto capsule is delivered to your guest's shaky hand. An inquisitive sniff is applied. The medicine is held up to the light. Doubt fills the air as you hurriedly read the microscopic directions on the pink bottle. "My Tums has a chalky taste," your guest whispers forlornly. "Why don't you lick it?" you encourage, "Maybe this tablet is chalky too." You skim read faster. Time is running out. "Chew it," you say desperately, throwing caution to the wind. The digestive health of your guest is at stake here. Too late, you realize your error as your guest doubles over in a coughing fit...her face contorted...her taste buds obliterated beyond repair. "Oops..." you've apparently just reached a relevant direction on the Pepto bottle. "Well..." you yell cheerfully over the coughing, gagging, and retching, "at least you'll absorb it faster this way!"

8. Providing furry companionship for your house-guests will really put you over the top. Now, understand that both two-and-four legged creatures can be unpredictable and behaviors must be managed immediately. A raised voice may result in fear and confusion. Physical discipline might be met with reciprocity. A water-filled spray bottle is an effective method of communicating your displeasure of a certain behavior. Testing this method on your guest first often serves as a deterrent...delaying or diminishing similar behaviors from your four-legged friend. Using your guest as a role model will also provide him/her with a sense of self-importance and belonging. The refreshing burst of water also is key in skin hydration...plumping those dehydrated pores while flooding the dry desert facial plain. By the end of the visit, your guest's skin will simply sparkle. And unsolicited barking will be kept to a minimum.

Look at all I've learned during this, my ten-day visit to San Diego! As I have only been here three days so far, I can't wait to discover even more hosting tips for when the girls come to visit me in New York. I have a LOT planned. Just pray I survive this particular trip first.