Coffee Cup Collection

Once upon a time I read some advice on minimizing clutter which suggested that a family only needed one plate, one cup, one bowl per family member, and only one mug per coffee/hot cocoa drinking family member.

We don't follow that advice.

I don't even want to follow that advice.

"I am firmly convinced that if Christians would open their homes and practice hospitality as defined in Scripture, we could significantly alter the fabric of society. We could play a major role in its spiritual, moral, and emotional redemption."

"In this inhospitable world a Christian home is a miracle to be shared." (Open Heart, Open Home: The Hospitable Way to Make Others Feel Welcome & Wanted by Karen Burton Mains)

In fact, I think it's appalling advice, and pretty much solidifies that lack of hospitality is an entrenched way of life.

 There have been one or two times when we were forced to live that way by our circumstances- we were supposed to be in Illinois for six weeks while my husband was in tech school, and we had to rent a furnished trailer and pack only what I could get on the plane. The military provided us with one dish, one utensil per person.  Only, we ended up living there for six months.  I walked across the street to the second hand store in our neighborhood, and bought extra plates and mismatched utensils.("Entertaining always puts things before people. Hospitality...puts people before things.")


So I understand that circumstances sometimes place us in situations where we have no choice- but this should be an anomaly, not the standard way of life for a Christian (and it was on a blog written by a Christian where I read that advice).

We have a lot of company and it is my husband's goal to have one coffee cup per guest. Ideally, he'd like each guest to have his own 'regular' coffee cup, hanging on a mug rack with the guest's name on it. Considering that we may have fifty people in and out in a given year, that's a little problematic.

Storage is a bit of a problem, too. Below are two of our solutions.

 I picked up an accordion mug rack for fifty cents at a thrift shop.  I painted it red to match my kitchen and turned it sideways, and the Boy mounted it for me on the side of our tall but narrow bookcase in the kitchen. I can fit one more above it. I could fit one more below it, but then the Grandbabies would be getting their chubby little fingers tapped for playing with the mugs, and we can't have that, so I prefer to mount them out of reach.
I needed extra room on one of the bookcase shelves for my tallest cookbooks. So we removed the shelf and relocated it, carefully placing it just about an inch above coffee mug height below the upper shelf.

Another solution is to screw cup-hooks into the bottom of an upper shelf to hang the mugs in what is usually unused space. I've also hung such cup hooks in the bottom of my over the counter kitchen cupboards before, if the cupboards were high enough.

Coffee is an important part of the hospitality offered at our house. At your house it might be sweet tea, or water with mint from your garden, or fresh squeezed orange juice if you live, as the HM did growing up, in the middle of an orange grove.  Or maybe your hospitality is all about working together on some project, or simply providing a place for church visitors to take a comfortable Sunday Afternoon nap.

“We each will develop our own style, but let us do it with delight, remembering the source of these homemaking triumphs.”

"For most Christians, however, taking in anyone in need, even one's own family, is a radical step. Many who say they follow Christ have no comprehension of the basics of hospitality. We have allowed the world to squeeze us into its mold. We think in terms of entertaining as a woman's chance to demonstrate her skill and the quality of her home. Entertaining has little to do with real hospitality." (Open Heart, Open Home: The Hospitable Way to Make Others Feel Welcome & Wanted)

It really doesn't matter what your personal style is- what matters is that you practice, in some way, hospitality- a love of guests.  What's your style?