Dear Fiona: how do I fit more guests into my house than I have room for?

Dear Fiona,

Prompted by my parents’ downsizing, I’m hosting Christmas for the first time, which initially seemed exciting. It’ll be me, my husband and our two under-eights, my sister and her husband and her thirteen and eleven-year-old, my brother and my brand new sister-in-law and my brother’s six-year-old from his first marriage, our parents, my godfather, and his son who's one of my best friends (they’ve spent Christmas with us for years).

The problem is that, once I wrote it all down, I realised that we can’t possibly all fit in my house. It’s FIFTEEN. Our dining room table fits ten – and that’s a squeeze. (I keep meaning to find a bigger one but haven’t, yet, and the kitchen is not an eat-in kitchen.) There definitely aren’t fifteen places to sit down in the sitting room. I tried to do a sleeping plan, and am pretty certain that my brother and new sister-in-law are going to have to sleep in a room that is usually a dressing room which means other people are going to have to go through it to get to the bathroom – and there are only two bathrooms - and I’m worried that she’s going to be horrified (she’s quite smart.) I haven’t actually found a bedroom at all for my godfather, or his son - maybe they could share my husband’s study which has a sofa bed and a TV in it?

The stupid thing is that my mother kept asking me about it – and I kept telling her that it was going to be fine – and now it’s December and the house hasn’t increased in size since I issued these invitations back in September, absolutely insisting that everybody come. It’s four nights – the 23^rd – 27^th – and I’m picturing a prickly sister-in-law and bored tweens and people making excuses and leaving at the crack of dawn on Boxing Day and I’ll feel like I’ve failed to provide somewhere sufficiently comfortable or festively restive.

Have you got any tips on how to make this work? Do we simply take all the dining room chairs into the sitting room between meals? Do I have two sittings for every meal? Do I make the children eat in the playroom? (I think some of them are too young – also, isn’t it meant to be about them?) And oh my goodness – what are we all going to do? (Well, I’ll be cooking non-stop and pretty much chained to the oven, but what is everybody else going to do? You don’t have to answer, it’s sort of a rhetorical question, I know that you’re not a party entertainer.)

I’m feeling desperately sick and anxious about the whole thing and keep waking up in the middle of the night wondering what excuse I could use to cancel, while obsessively triple checking my pre-booked Ocado order which is due to be delivered on the 22^nd. What if it doesn’t come? All I want is to create the sort of magical Christmas that my mother has provided every year until now – but those celebrations were in a rather larger house.

Love

A Christmas Maiden XX

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Dear Christmas Maiden,

You know, I admire your initial optimism. Many are those who would have counted up bedrooms and bathrooms, and either given up or only invited half the number of people. Instead, you are effectively channelling your inner innkeeper in finding space where there is none, i.e. performing (even if subconsciously) a fundamental plotline from the Christmas story. And, as Chloe Willis of Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler points out, “one of the best bits of Christmas is the squash of family, lunatic toddlers high on Christmas cake icing getting under everyone’s feet, the young escaping the washing up to play cards and sneak cigarettes, and everyone squeezing in to open presents or gorge on burnt devils on horseback.” All we need to do is figure out how make it feel fun and exciting again, rather than something you are dreading. I do wonder if the space issue isn’t a bit of a red herring (especially since it wasn’t originally a concern), and if the overwhelm might stem more from perfectionist ideals, and the pressure so many of us feel at Christmas, driven, variously, by Hollywood films, rampant consumerism, and, most of all, ourselves? (Maybe you too spotted the outcry on Mumsnet over M&S’s “This Christmas, do only what you love” advert, and the genuine frothing over Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s torching of Christmas cards.)

But, you asked for a plan, and, recognising something of myself in your letter, I know that there is nothing like method for easing self-induced madness, so let’s get going with last minute tips for magically making your house feel bigger. I’m breaking it into subheadings for quick, easy reference for others who share your situation – anyone else can skip forward to where I resume the article, under the title ‘further addressing Christmas perfectionism’ (yes, we’re going to continue unpicking what I’ve started.)

Bedrooms

The more senior the guest the more important it is that they have a comfortable bedroom, they’ll also need proximity to a bathroom and, possibly, a plug-in heater. Tween and teen children (not your godfather) are the ideal occupiers of a television snug or study; their circadian rhythms have reached a point where they won’t mind staying up while others finish watching the ten o’clock news, and they can sleep in every morning because nobody wants to watch television then, and you can ask them to return the room to its rightful state when they do get up (their stuff can be stashed behind the sofa.) As for younger children, “makeshift dormitories” is the answer, says Chloe, who recounts that at her parents’ house, “the attic bedrooms” (you could use the playroom) “are lined with futons and all the children are shoved in together which frees up bedrooms and gives them a place to escape the boring grown-ups.” She advises filling the dormitory with piles of books and games to keep them occupied for longer. Then, accept that none of the children will sleep for long enough on the first night and make a pact that any child who is being particularly irritating will have to sleep on their parents’ floor.

(Oh, and know that when Imogen Taylor was working for John Fowler at Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler, she was a regular guest at his fabled Hunting Lodge where “there were two single bedrooms and a double bedroom; one of the single bedrooms was quite awkward because you had to go through the double bedroom to get to the bathroom,” she recounts. i.e. there is exemplary precedence of that situation.)

Downstairs, and straight into the dining rooms

Separate sittings for children and grown-ups is a valid fix, and you could join up for pudding, employing a contemporary version of those ever useful stackable banqueting chairs. For Chloe these are “red plastic stools, bought in Chinatown when we lived in Malaysia.” She often puts them all around the table, instead of chairs; “it’s amazing how many more people can fit” – which might even mean you can do away with the need for sittings. (Though do keep three chairs back for your parents, etc.) Alternatively, bring in a small second table, which can be tagged on to your own, or set up separately for the children.

Sitting room

You’re right to think about this, too. Mark Hampton tells a harrowing tale of somebody’s dinner parties always ending early because although her dining room incorporated twenty-four, her drawing room only sat twelve; guests left because there was, literally, nowhere to sit. Fortunately, you have a captive audience - though if you’re hoping they’ll all go to bed at nine you now know what to do. But imagining that’s not your aim, I’d take the books off the ottoman or coffee table (giving you at least two more spots to perch), the trinkets off the side tables (visually the room will become more spacious – you’re now essentially performing that well known Julia Donaldson children’s story, A Squash and A Squeeze) and put any overly bulky armchairs into bedrooms (prioritising those of your parents and godfather) replacing them with pairs of slimmer side chairs – that can, if necessary, be brought in each time from the dining room between meals. Children can sit on laps, on the floor in front of the fire, or on the fender if you’ve got one. One quite important point: you don’t want to put the Christmas tree anywhere it’s going to block conversations – or risk being knocked over.

Everywhere else

However, people won’t want to be all together non-stop, which is why I’ve suggested armchairs in bedrooms, and I’d similarly ensure that refuge can be found in other spots, such as the study, and even – if there’s space, and isn’t a draft – the hall. A chair either side of a table that has a light on it can be an inviting spot for a more intimate chat, or somewhere to read, and leaving newspapers or magazines on the table will indicate purpose. Equally, you (or any other cook – read on) probably don’t want to be on your own in the kitchen, so make sure that there’s somewhere for company to sit (and peel potatoes.)

Further addressing Christmas perfectionism

Which leads us, finally, onto what you’re all going to do. It might have been a rhetorical question, but I have answers anyway – because, regarding the aforementioned perfectionist tendencies, I wonder if it might help to focus less on what everybody thinks of your house and your hostessing, and more on the idea of everybody enjoying being together? i.e. Could you perhaps take the dreams of providing perfection via a facsimile copy of Christmases past, and swap them for intended pursuit of a good time?

So yes, Christmas is all about the children, and if they’re happy and occupied, so will their parents be happy and relaxed. To which end, Olivia Outred recommends ensuring that the dining room can double in purpose, “by way of an old-fashioned, wipe clean oilcloth tablecloth that can be whipped off ahead of every meal, along with pompoms and glitter glue.” You can theme craft-based activities and attempt to make them appear sufficiently fun that at least some of the grown-ups will want to get involved (including, hopefully, your sister-in-law, who may well be feeling like a fish out of water – I’d definitely brief your best friend to make a particular effort with her, if you haven’t already). Think paper chains, paper stars and, Emma Burns’s favourite, gingerbread houses, “every year we ruthlessly compete to make the best decorated building – and shouts of ‘burny, burny, hot, hot!’ ring out as the sauce pan of sugar solution that acts as the glue is passed around,” she recounts. The theming can continue to outdoor activities, Bunny Turner goes out foraging with her children for lichen, “apparently it's a reindeer’s preferred food,” she says.

The other thing I hope you’re all going to do – and this is faintly radical, but hear me out - is cook. I think you should strongly consider divvying up suppers, puddings, and the devils on horseback, making the responsibility for this Christmas a collective one. Guests generally enjoy being asked to help, it gives them a focus, and makes them feel invested in the experience - if you’re all in it together, then you triumph together. And, remember that your new priority is the pursuit of a good time for all, and this frees you from your proposed permanent residence in the kitchen. You can still do the Christmas day feast, and take the applause for that (I’ve always seen cooking as a spectator sport) but you’ll be allowing others a moment in the spotlight. It might not be what your mother did, but see it as an evolvement in line with being in a different house, the beginning of a new type of Christmas that is going to feel slightly different, anyway. And hopefully your obsession with your Ocado order will dampen enough to grant you the occasional night’s sleep between now and December 23^rd.

My final point is that, even with the best planning, things can go wrong. When I think back to my own Christmases gone, many are marked by events that were outside our control: one year the Aga ran out of oil leaving us with only a microwave, another year I woke up to howling winds on Christmas morning and discovered that my window had blown clean out, rotten frame and all, leaving a gaping hole in the wall, and yet another year, the dog got lost. But they’ve all become part of family lore – not because they were awful (aside from the lost dog, that was heartbreaking), or ‘failed’ Christmases, but because they were conceived with love, and, despite insufficient bathrooms, the very best of intentions – just as, I imagine, your family Christmases have been, to date. That’s all that really matters for a perfectly magical Christmas – and that’s what you’ve got. (Though if you’re still feeling sick, it’s not too late to book half the party into a hotel, and I bet they’d understand.)

So Happy Christmas,

Love, Fiona XX

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