~~The Gayla Pink Apple~~
So, what is Southern Hospitality, anyway?
It's southern women (and men) inherently gracious, taking the time and extra effort to make others feel welcome in their homes. It's treating family and friends in your home with kindness, respect, and attentiveness, putting them at ease, and making them feel a little special.
My association with the garden club ladies, which started about twenty years ago, gave me a wonderful opportunity to see gracious southern women in action. Their homes warm and inviting with much attention to detail. I learned a lot from these fabulous ladies and still today, am most grateful to have had (and still have) them in my life.
Making another person feel welcomed in your home - a satisfaction, for me, in the simple pleasures that using beautiful things can bring. Making guests feel welcome by seating them at a pretty dining table and making them feel a part of a warm, personal, and happy occasion.
I am one who loves pretty things. You know what I mean, don't you? There are just some women - especially southern women - who love pretty things. For me that's crystal, china, and silver, etc. For others it might be bright colorful pottery and / or colored cut glass, stoneware, etc. The kinds of things that we love to use to make our family and guests feel our hospitality. I claim, or perhaps even blame, the garden club ladies for my love of dishes, silver, crystal, and "pretty things." They definitely rubbed off on me - in a good way! Entertaining family and friends, tending to every detail of putting together a cocktail party or dinner party -- watching and observing how they did all.
There is no greater compliment we can pay our friends than to invite them into our personal environment. I recall, 30 or so years ago, when my then colleague - now my dear 85 year old friend - invited me to her home for the first time. She told me she liked for her friends to see how she lived. I thought that was so telling of her loving personality, opening her home to me, which was also her offering me her friendship. She often graciously shared her southern hospitality with me. I was very young - a newlywed - and she definitely had a major impact on my life and influenced me as I put together my own southern home.
My grandmother was a gracious lady who extruded southern hospitality, but she wouldn't see it as entertaining - she was always just having "company." She was the country cook who didn't think of having a dinner party, but she was always ready to cook for others, and share her food with company. It doesn't matter which word you use - entertaining or having company - it's southern hospitality.
We are our most open and gracious self when sharing food and conversation with others in a relaxed and beautiful setting. What better way to enjoy our friends than by lingering over a delicious meal served on a beautiful table in our homes? It doesn't matter if the meal is made from scratch or picked up from a gourmet grocery store. Our family and friends will appreciate the personal attention and effort, no matter how extraordinary or minimal the food served and shared.
As I conclude this blog, let me just say thank you to a few of my favorite garden club ladies who had an impact on me... to Jeanne Kumpuris Spencer, Imogene Miller, Ruth Rawls Lawson, and Joan Olson for your natural grace and southern hospitality shown to me over the years.
It doesn't matter how you describe a gathering - it doesn't matter how fancy or minimal -- what matters is that you share your graciousness - your warm and inviting home in love and kindness to the people important to you in your own "Southern Style of Hospitality!"
Now, how about dessert,
Gayla
It's southern women (and men) inherently gracious, taking the time and extra effort to make others feel welcome in their homes. It's treating family and friends in your home with kindness, respect, and attentiveness, putting them at ease, and making them feel a little special.
My association with the garden club ladies, which started about twenty years ago, gave me a wonderful opportunity to see gracious southern women in action. Their homes warm and inviting with much attention to detail. I learned a lot from these fabulous ladies and still today, am most grateful to have had (and still have) them in my life.
Making another person feel welcomed in your home - a satisfaction, for me, in the simple pleasures that using beautiful things can bring. Making guests feel welcome by seating them at a pretty dining table and making them feel a part of a warm, personal, and happy occasion.
I am one who loves pretty things. You know what I mean, don't you? There are just some women - especially southern women - who love pretty things. For me that's crystal, china, and silver, etc. For others it might be bright colorful pottery and / or colored cut glass, stoneware, etc. The kinds of things that we love to use to make our family and guests feel our hospitality. I claim, or perhaps even blame, the garden club ladies for my love of dishes, silver, crystal, and "pretty things." They definitely rubbed off on me - in a good way! Entertaining family and friends, tending to every detail of putting together a cocktail party or dinner party -- watching and observing how they did all.
There is no greater compliment we can pay our friends than to invite them into our personal environment. I recall, 30 or so years ago, when my then colleague - now my dear 85 year old friend - invited me to her home for the first time. She told me she liked for her friends to see how she lived. I thought that was so telling of her loving personality, opening her home to me, which was also her offering me her friendship. She often graciously shared her southern hospitality with me. I was very young - a newlywed - and she definitely had a major impact on my life and influenced me as I put together my own southern home.
My grandmother was a gracious lady who extruded southern hospitality, but she wouldn't see it as entertaining - she was always just having "company." She was the country cook who didn't think of having a dinner party, but she was always ready to cook for others, and share her food with company. It doesn't matter which word you use - entertaining or having company - it's southern hospitality.
We are our most open and gracious self when sharing food and conversation with others in a relaxed and beautiful setting. What better way to enjoy our friends than by lingering over a delicious meal served on a beautiful table in our homes? It doesn't matter if the meal is made from scratch or picked up from a gourmet grocery store. Our family and friends will appreciate the personal attention and effort, no matter how extraordinary or minimal the food served and shared.
As I conclude this blog, let me just say thank you to a few of my favorite garden club ladies who had an impact on me... to Jeanne Kumpuris Spencer, Imogene Miller, Ruth Rawls Lawson, and Joan Olson for your natural grace and southern hospitality shown to me over the years.
It doesn't matter how you describe a gathering - it doesn't matter how fancy or minimal -- what matters is that you share your graciousness - your warm and inviting home in love and kindness to the people important to you in your own "Southern Style of Hospitality!"
Now, how about dessert,
Gayla
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