Ann Moore-Spencer

Christ­mas is one of my favourite times of year. I look for­ward to so­cial­is­ing with fam­i­ly and friends. It's a great way to end the year and to look for­ward to the com­ing year.So, my fam­i­ly and I are ei­ther de­scend­ing on a rel­a­tive or we are prepar­ing for re­ceiv­ing the mass­es our­selves. As a host­ess I want my guests to be hap­py and com­fort­able and as a guest I look for­ward to a pleas­ant stay. It's not just pro­vid­ing a place to sleep. The thought­ful­ness of the host­ess makes any guest feel spe­cial.Pay at­ten­tion to the d&ea­cute;cor. As a guest, I feel spe­cial if my room is nice­ly dec­o­rat­ed. Yes I may be in the study or in a lit­tle used bed­room. But, it does not have to be any­thing big: co­or­di­nat­ed bed linen, nice wall colour and win­dow treat­ments, at­ten­tion to light­ing and an area rug. Why not ex­per­i­ment with colour; try some­thing un­ex­pect­ed. If you are not brave enough to use colour in the rest of the house, try us­ing it in the guest bed­room. You have to pro­vide bed linen; why not make it co­or­di­nate? A good tip is to use white or off white linen for your guests. All white will al­ways look good and pieces from dif­fer­ent sets will work to­geth­er. All you need to do is ac­ces­sorise it with a throw or cov­er­let and some ac­cent pil­lows.

Many peo­ple are afraid of white. They say it soils eas­i­ly. Peo­ple, please! You don't think the choco­late brown linen would not be soiled too? It is just not show­ing. That does not make it any less dirty! In ho­tels I like the com­fort of white linen. I know the last guests' soil is not on it. It has to be laun­dered... look, let me get off my soap­box.Keep tem­per­a­tures com­fort­able. Noth­ing can com­pro­mise com­fort as a room that is too hot or too cold. The in­ci­dence of too cold is prob­a­bly not rel­e­vant in Trinidad. But I of­ten spend my Christ­mas abroad and I am very grate­ful that my hosts are sen­si­tive to my trop­i­cal roots. I nev­er have to com­plain about the tem­per­a­ture when I am in­doors. Just so, I try to pro­vide a well-ven­ti­lat­ed room with fans or an air con­di­tion unit for my guests. In ad­di­tion, if you can pro­vide both a cov­er­let and com­forter. Let your guest choose what is ap­pro­pri­ate for them. It would be ap­pre­ci­at­ed if the room has tra­vers­ing drap­ery that can close to keep out un­want­ed eyes or un­want­ed sun­light at the crack of dawn, or can open to al­low for plen­ty of nat­ur­al light and fresh air.

Pri­vate space. Very of­ten when we have guests over, no one has pri­va­cy; not the guests and not the hosts. Please give me my pri­va­cy. Put some thought in­to how you can pro­vide pri­va­cy for your guests. If you can­not pro­vide an en-suite bath­room, pro­vide your guests with robes and an am­ple sup­ply of tow­els and wash­cloths in their room. This gives you the op­por­tu­ni­ty to co­or­di­nate the bath tow­els with the room d&ea­cute;cor. Pam­per them with spe­cial bath soaps, sham­poos, tooth­paste, lo­tions and ex­tra ra­zors. Con­sid­er plac­ing these items in bas­kets and / or lay­ing them out nice­ly on open shelves.Re­lax­ing oa­sis. An­oth­er thing your guest will ap­pre­ci­ate is in-room ac­com­mo­da­tion for loung­ing, read­ing and look­ing at TV. Pro­vide them with a few good books, the news­pa­pers, some puz­zles. Your guest can have pri­vate time with­out al­ways be­ing in your face. They can en­ter­tain them­selves. Guests can look at what they want on TV or just read a book. A com­fort­able chair with a good read­ing lamp is a thought­ful bonus for your guests. It's a plus if the lamp and chair looks good and is well co­or­di­nat­ed with the d&ea­cute;cor of the room. And stacked books can be a good de­sign de­tail. It helps them feel com­fort­able and re­laxed even though they nev­er open them. What about a small re­frig­er­a­tor with some drinks and ice cream just for them?

Fresh flow­ers. What about some fresh flow­ers on the side ta­ble or the dress­ing ta­ble? A sin­gle stem or a bou­quet, noth­ing ar­ti­fi­cial. You don't have to spend a for­tune; some­thing sim­ple from the gar­den will do. This says 'Wel­come. We love to have you here'. It will bring a smile to their lips. But, un­less you know their pref­er­ences, choose some­thing pret­ty, but scent­less.Stor­age space. Face it; liv­ing out of a suit­case is un­com­fort­able. Your guests will ap­pre­ci­ate hav­ing space to store their clothes (and the suit­case it­self). Pro­vide them with space for their fold­ed and their hang­ing clothes. If you do not have clos­et space, over the door hang­ers can suf­fice for overnight guests. Give them nice stur­dy, qual­i­ty wood­en hang­ers; not the wire ones you got from the dry clean­ers. Bed­side ta­bles and desks with draw­ers can do dou­ble-du­ty.All in all, the idea is to make your guest feel spe­cial. Though you may not have a des­ig­nat­ed guest room and may be us­ing space from your study, of­fice or fam­i­ly room, please clear out all the clut­ter and con­fig­ure the space with your guests in mind. It must nev­er look like an af­ter­thought or im­po­si­tion. If you can­not have every­thing look­ing well-co­or­di­nat­ed, just your thought­ful­ness and at­ten­tion to de­tail will not go un­no­ticed.