To never entertain at ours?

[lacoste]

We never entertain at ours as I feel it is hard work,messy and expensive,am I the only one or aibu.

One of our best evenings recently was when a friend of DS1's came back to ours to play after a party. The friend's parents rang to find out when to collect him and we said just come and eat with us at 5pm and all go home after that. There was nothing fancy, just a BBQ, and (nearly) enough food to go round.

The friends are from NZ. They said we won the prize... first Brits to have them round to our house. They've been here 18 months

We never entertain at our house because it is far too small for the 2 adults and 2 children who live here let along adding guests into it and out garden is by name only, needs shed loads of work and we rent so have constrains on doing anything. In the summer we are offten at a BBQ every weekend, sometimes two and I do feel bad never hosting but the get togethers we attend are not fully catered by the hosts, you bring your own stuff to put on the BBQ and your own drinks, it is just the way it is done in our village, I garden share for a veg plot with my best friend and we joint host, we will both do the prep work in the garden and all the other bits, my dh will run the grill because she likes to, it works for us and makes me feel less bad about not being able to host.
If you go to others then for the reasons you gave yabu but if you don't then you are not.

We have definitely been guity of this over the last year or so. I do plan to change my ways though (building work nearly at an end to make reception space bigger, but reality is there is no reason why I couldn't have done something before)! We do recipricate meals at friends houses with taking them out for a meal though, so I don't feel too guilty.

I wouldn't expect the invitations to keep on coming though.

When I first married DH and had DS we used to regularly invite MIL and FIL over for meals but after a year or so of always playing host, even though I had less time, I got a bit hacked off with it and we stopped inviting them, which is a shame really. I think I will start again with Sunday lunch or something but not expect a return invitation.

YABU if you are going to other people's.

We get this a fair bit with some people, and although it doesn't stop me inviting them I do notice it and it's a bit annoying tbh.

If you don't want to return the invite, you could always invite them out somewhere and offer to pay - it's only polite if they have repeatedly fed you and your family :o))))

In the year after the DTs were born we had people over loads.

It really is the easiest way to have a social life with small children.

People come to your house .... so you can follow your regular routine with the babies. DTs go to bed at 7pm and then you can have some interesting adult company.

Sometimes we would just get a takeaway ... and sometimes I would cook some really easy one-pot type meal (curry / stew etc) that could be prepared hours in advance and just left on the hob til it was time to eat.

That plus some booz and nice company. What could be better?

Otherwise we would have been social outcasts in the first year . Even now that we have some reliable babysitters, I find it much easier to have people come over for dinner.

I guess it helps that most of our friends either have much older children or are childless - so they had no babysitting problems.

Euphemia - if you dont't actually like them that's fair enough .

I was just making the point that having people over for dinner can be inexpensive and easy.

Plus you don't have to get a babysitter.

emy 72 - I have hosted many dinners for friends, but have stopped doing it now because we never get a return invitation - they have even said "we must have you back to ours" but after waiting for 2 years we have stopped inviting them and they stopped mentioning it. Although to be fair, they always brought wine/nibbles/lettuce from their garden, still disappointed though.

I was thinking an 'American supper' idea could be good - just get them to bring round a course each, that way we still get to have a great evening with friends and I don't have to do everything. But it would be probably be something shop bought, nobody seems to have the time/make the time.

Thing1Thing2 - thinking about it, we have friends with older children who always come here, although last time we got a takeaway!

I've given up asking people over, as dont get invited back - apart form one couple.

It's expensive too.

We tend to just get an indian takeaway now and split the bill.