Hospitality Basket for Guests

(What are you saying? You mean EVERYONE doesn't have a guest room like this? Just shocking! {"shocking" what a funny sounding word, shock, shock, shock, it even looks funny})

My parents are coming for Easter weekend and I'm excited about it because this time they'll be staying with us. With our new house we have an extra room (our office) where guests can stay. (And no it's not pictured above.)

I did not like for people to stay with us when we didn't have a room or a bed for them to sleep. My in-laws stayed with us once before, they even shipped out their own air mattress. However they ended up on the couch and recliner the whole week because of bad backs and bad knees. It was too hard getting up and down from the floor where the mattress was. Thereafter everyone stayed at hotels.

In preparation for their visit I picked up some things at the store. I wanted to make a hospitality basket full of stuff they might forget to pack to make up for the lack of incredibly nice guest room pictured above. (You know the things when you start unpacking your suitcase and go, "Oh man, I forgot my _________!")

Some hospitality baskets include items like snacks, water, pain reliever, etc. but I've kept mine simple. I know they more than likely will not forget anything (my mom is big with lists for packing we all got our own list to check off when we went on vacations, camp, etc.) but these will also be for future guests into our home. I have a large square wicker basket that was given to me by a visiting preacher and inside it I've got their towels for their stay, his/her shaving cream, toothbrushes, toothpaste, body wash, soap, shampoo and conditioner, hairspray, his/her razors, lint roller, lotion, his/her deodorants, q-tips, and a body puff.

I received this whole basket idea from a class I took in Bible college called "Ministry Mates". My friend Tammy and I took that class together (we were the only two married girls in the class). The teacher gave us a cute poem to put into the basket but I couldn't find my notebook from the class because it's buried in the garage somewhere so Tammy kindly found hers for me and emailed me the words.

A Note to our House Guests
If in this basket you can find,
An item that you left behind,
Please help yourself to what you need
Because we count you friends indeed!

If you have someone coming to stay at your house, try making up your own basket of goodies and improvise, put some stuff in there that you know they like (my dad likes a certain type of gum and later this week I'll be adding it to the basket).