Fishes and Loaves and Wine

In this season of hosting, Cherese tells about a comedy of errors party that she threw and what it taught her about true hospitality.

Hey, friends, this is Cherese Lee and you're listening to the Just Waiting for You Podcast. Whether the sun is shining where you are in life today or you're walking through a crappy storm and you really wish you got some rain boots. The power of a story is sometimes all you need for that perspective shift. Hang out with us for a few minutes and find out what happens when you realize that someone is just waiting for you.

It's a story. It's just a story. It was last December, and it was my husband's turn to host the monthly meeting of his wine club. My husband is in a wine club. A very, very nerdy wine club. Basically, it's a group of men who are extremely well-educated, very well-respected in our community, and they are super into wine.

They're the ones that do the sniffing of the wine and the swishing of the wine. They study for their meetings. They're very into their wine. They have formal tastings once a month and they last 2 hours because there's an agenda, and you can't have an open-ended wine tasting because then it just becomes a drinking fest, right? Usually once or twice a year, they'll do an event where they invite their spouses.

Now, that's not to say we couldn't go any time we wanted, but the guys are the ones that are the wine nerds for the most part. Well, last December, it was Brandon's turn to host Wine Club, and with it being December and Christmas, we decided to make it an event where the spouses were invited. So, it was more like a Christmas party for the wine club, except as previously mentioned, these are wine nerds.

Therefore, it was a very formal wine tasting with spouses invited. The thing about Wine Club (at least for last December) is that they hadn't been together in really quite a while thanks to COVID. So not only was it exciting that they were coming together but also it's Christmas. Also, they're bringing a date and several of them I hadn't met before.

In my mind, I'm not going to lie. I was a little intimidated about hosting (for the first time in a while) this wine club that is very nerdy and very formal about their wine. So needless to say, I spent the entire day getting ready. The house was decorated for Christmas, and so there's a lot of things you can get away with in a house that has twinkling lights in it. Right?

But the fact remains, we have five kids. We have a lovely home..yes. We have a lovely home that has five children in it. So, the majority of the day was spent getting food prepared, cleaning bathrooms, getting the kitchen ready, cooking. We decided to do, like heavy hors d'oeuvres for this. And I thought I was being super smart and planning ahead.

And so, I ordered meat. I think it was like a beef brisket from a local place. And then I was just going to make lots of things to go with that. So, I look at the clock that evening and it's about an hour before people are going to start arriving. And I realize that I haven't showered yet and I need to go pick up the brisket.

So, I get to a good stopping point where I feel like I can make all of this happen. Brandon on the other hand was super into getting the wines ready and opened up and the little cards, you know, explaining what was in what decanter. And then other people were bringing wines and they were dropping them off early because they had to breathe (I told you guys this was a nerdy situation).

So I head out to the restaurant to pick up the beef, and when I go in, I am told that they don't have my order. They have no record of my order. Now, I spent the day making things and preparing things that would go with the beef. I have no plan B here.

Well, I guess the panic on my face told the entire story to these really nice, late teenagers working at this restaurant. And they assure me that they can make this happen for me and to just give them twenty minutes. So, I'm looking at my watch and doing the math. Twenty minutes. It takes me probably ten minutes to get home.

That puts me at thirty minutes, which give or take from the time it took me to get there, it should give me fifteen minutes to shower, dry my hair, put on some makeup, get dressed and open the door as the smiling hostess who's definitely not intimidated by the nerdy wine group with several people I'd never met before. Also, as the first hosting in quite some time.

So, I decide, okay, really, I have no other choice. Well, twenty minutes go by. Foods not ready. Thirty minutes go by. The food is not ready. And I'm starting to sweat (quite literally) about this. So, I go back up to the counter and they apologize. It's just taking longer than they thought it would. They had these other orders that they did have on file.

And I say, okay, I just have to call it at this point. Like, I will find one of my teenagers somewhere and I will send them back for food and I'll just stall these people until then. I have to get home. They assure me five more minutes. If you just wait five minutes, we'll have it ready. Well, guess what, guys?

In five more minutes, it was not ready. And now it's ten to six. And at six, everyone's arriving. So, I abandon plan A, B, C, and D right there and head home. And as I'm pulling into the driveway, so are several other people who are coming to this lovely night. So, I do what any respectable person would do.

I hide in my car because I'm still in my cleaning clothes with my hair pulled back smelling like I'm, you know, out of plans A through F, and I wait until everyone gets in the house and then I panic text my husband that he needs to send one of our little girls to the back side door and unlock it so that I can sneak into my own house, which I do.

I jump in the shower in about the quickest fashion ever, dry my hair (mostly), throw on clothes. I did the like three-minute makeup throw-on to make myself look like I was trying, and come out of my bedroom as if, you know, I just had to take a little extra time to get ready. I apologize to the guests coming in for not being there when they very first arrived.

And my husband's looking at me like, “Where's the beef? Where's the beef?” And I assure him that it will be there eventually-that I have dispatched one of our teenagers to go follow up. So, I'm kind of going around the room completely flustered, trying to catch up mentally and physically. And I look over into my living room and realize I actually wasn't done when I left to go get the beef.

I look at the couch, there's blankets everywhere (our kids just come in after school and plop). There's random socks in the floor of the living room. (thank you, kids). Why? Why do kids take socks off everywhere? There's dog toys all around. I look over top of our dining room. There's this giant banner that the girls made at the beginning of the pandemic that says Quarantined and is decorated.

Definitely meant to take that down. I mean, it's just I had been really focused on getting it clean and had not yet gotten to the straightening part, because I just kind of figured I'd do that after my shower as I'm finishing up and getting ready to answer the door. Needless to say, none of that ever happened. So, it's fine.

I'm fine, everything's fine. My hair is half wet. My shirt's untucked. I don't have food for these people, but it's fine. We're fine. So someone graciously hands me a glass of champagne. We're starting off the evening. I am ready for a glass of champagne, and I start to enjoy that. And I feel this tap on my shoulder and turn around and what a lot of the people attending the party kindly says to me, “uh…Cherese, I don't mean to alarm you, but you-you-your face-you…”.

And I said, “Oh, God, do I have hives?” “Yeah. Are you okay?” “I'm just-yeah, I think I'm newly allergic to wine. It's fine. I’ll be fine.” To which other people at this party that I'm hosting start turning around. “Oh, do you have an EpiPen? Do you need that?” I'm like, “Oh, dear Lord, please just let the rapture happen. Like, no, it's fine.”

Take a Claritin. Everything's great. Teenager comes in with the beef. Finally. I set everything out. Tell people, please make a plate. Make yourself comfortable. The wine nerds are explaining the wines that they've brought. We get about three-quarters of the way through the line, and I realize this is about to be the fishes and loaves. We don't have enough beef.

Oh, when they lost the order, there was no record of how much I needed. And I thought I told them pretty clearly. But then having the teenager go and pick it up, there was no follow-up. And so I give the look to my husband. Do y’all do that? Does anyone watch How I Met Your Mother? You know, Marshall and Lily have those conversations with their eyes, like full-on conversation, no words.

Yeah, that's what we're doing. And I'm telling him, we're-we're about to run out of food. I'm not really sure. So he just kind of scoots on in and starts cutting the beef in smaller pieces. We make this pact that we're just not going to eat. It's fine. At this point, I'm just thinking “I mean, come on. Come on!”

So we continue throughout the evening. No one noticed that we ran out of food. There were plenty of snacks and everyone had a great time, and they all were so fun and so genuine and lovely. The new ones that I met and of course the friends that we just hadn't seen in a really long time. And as the evening is wrapping up, I'm starting to get people's coats for them, which I realize (because I wasn't there when they arrived) that they're piled on the couch, the couch that's in the room with the dog toys and the blankets everywhere, and the smelly socks and the floor and the quarantine sign up on the wall.

And I'm trying to just take it in stride at this point. And one of the attendees who I hadn't met before this night looks over at my husband and says, “Thank you so much for having us. This was just wonderful, and I love your house. It feels so lived in.” Now when I retell that, it just sounds-just it sounds…oh, goodness.

But he meant it. He genuinely meant it. His kids are grown. His blankets are folded and stay folded, probably on his couch. I would seriously doubt that there are smelly socks in his floor or crayon colored “we're trapped in our house quarantine signs” scotch taped to his wall. I'm sure the dog toys are probably, I don't know, maybe neatly in a corner when guests are coming.

And when he said it, I could have easily taken offense to it. I giggled under my breath at the time because the whole night had just been… But he said it then again, he said, “When I look around, I just see how your family lives. Like, you're all together and you probably have a lot of fun here.” And he's right.

We do. We have a lot of fun amongst our stinky socks and our scotch-taped walls and our dirty bathrooms, our fishes and loaves meals that seem to be more of a habit around here. All the things that I had been so worried about all day and trying so hard to make perfect would have taken away something from the experience that he had at our house, from getting to know who we are. And isn't our hosting is all about?

You invite people into your home and into your life and when you get that invitation from someone else, isn't that what you're saying yes to? That someone thinks enough of you that they want you to come inside. That they want to show you a little bit of them-that they want to know you and for you to know them.

It's party season. It's hosting season. I hope that you will keep that in mind as you invite people in, and I hope that you do invite people in And I mean sure, swab a potty because that's just nice to do. But beyond that, maybe what someone needs to see is a home that's lived in. Maybe they miss the Crayola on the walls and the blankets everywhere and being in your home reminds them of that and gives them that warm, fuzzy feeling of days that are gone.

It doesn't even have to be a party. I think sometimes during this season, we get so busy and so wrapped up in all the formal things that we miss our people. Which sounds crazy because this is a big party and gathering time.

Maybe reach out to one of your friends and say, “Hey, I'm wrapping gifts tonight. Do you want to bring yours over and we'll do it together for an hour?” Or “Hey, I need to run errands, but I haven't seen you in forever. Do you want to go to Target with me?” Or even just have your people over for that Christmas party and say “The house is crazy. There's kids’ stuff everywhere. I miss you. Let's order pizza.”

Whether it's a formal, nerdy wine tasting that stresses you out and yet turns out to be one of the loveliest evenings, or it's just plopping on the couch with friends. Don't be afraid to show people your real life. It might be exactly what they've been missing.

Thanks for joining us. I hope you allow yourself to feel the things today and then have the courage to ask. But what if it looks like this? Go forth and show up for life, my friends. Someone is just waiting for you.