My husband and I always joke that we’re operating a Bed & Breakfast because we typically have lots of friends and family staying the night.  Living in Southern California, a lot of our family and friends tend to swing through on vacation, or our military friends come to the area for work frequently.  It’s been great to get to see so many of our friends and family since we don’t live near the rest of our family.  Because we tend to host guests a lot, we’ve learned a few things to make our guests’ stay a good one, and a few things to help out those that are hosting.  I’ll be passing on my tips to you today so you can put them to use when Grandma and Grandpa, uncles or aunts, or the in-laws come to visit for Christmas next week!

First, you want to generally clean the area your guests will be staying.  I don’t go crazy with this, just wiping some things down and making sure the sheets are fresh.  You don’t want any dried toothpaste in the sink, right?

Next, I like to make sure my guests are taken care of in case I’m not able to cater to them directly, so I like to leave some snacks and water next to their bed for either late night munchies or early morning breakfasts.  Usually some sort of granola bar or trail mix.  This time Costco had a deal on Ghiradelli chocolates, so our guests got some extra fancy snacks.

Then to make our guests ability to get connected quickly, we have a little sign next to the bed with all of our wifi information.  All they have to do is type it in and they can save all of their data for when they’re out of the house.  I’ve blurred out our information in the pictures below.

It doesn’t hurt to make sure the room smells nice, by either using flowers, a Febreeze plug in, or some sort of air freshener.

I try to ensure that there is some space in the closet for their luggage, or to hang any articles of clothing, and provide some empty hangers to do that.

In our guest’s bathroom, I leave a little basket of toiletries in case they may have forgotten something or didn’t want to hassle with the TSA restrictions on fluids.  Typically there are the basics, shampoo, conditioner, body wash or soap, and wash clothes.  Luckily a few years ago my husband was traveling for work a lot and brought home literally every toiletry possible from every hotel he stayed at.  Think Ross on Friends.  Because of that we have a wide variety of travel size toiletries that we use in the guest bathroom, including floss, toothbrushes, mouthwash, even travel size Q-tips.

Another bathroom tip when preparing for guests is to make sure there are plenty of towels easily available.  You’d hate for your guest to hop out of the shower and not know where to dry off.

Also, if your guest’s are traveling, especially flying, offer them a little something to eat when they show up.  Nothing throws off your meal schedule like flying through different time zones and only getting a small bag of peanuts or pretzels on the plane.

We recently stayed with some friends in Colorado, and they had the cutest welcome sign for us.  I thought it was such a special little touch!

Do you think these few tips will help you and all of your Christmas guests next week?  How many people are you hosting?  Have a great weekend before Christmas, and if you need to get those gifts wrapped, check out a recent post on wrapping paper resources here.