When was the last time you invited people into your home? Wait, it can’t be a work function or a major holiday. Just an ordinary Saturday night with a few friends, some food, a few bottles of wine, and absolutely no reason to celebrate anything. Give it some thought. We’ll wait.
Okay, that’s what I thought. If you’re having trouble remembering if it was pre or post Covid, you're not alone. According to a recent survey, we’ve abandoned one of the great American pastimes: entertaining. Up until 1975, 42% of Americans said they entertained in their home at least once per month. By 2026, that number had fallen to just 12%. That's a decline of roughly 70% in half a century.
Butter mints
Growing up, I always knew my parents were having a dinner party when the butter mints and ashtrays came out of hiding. The disappearance of the buttermints and ash trays signals a distinct shift in how we’ve chosen to live our lives. Nearly one-third of Americans didn't entertain anyone in their home in the past year.
How ironic. Most Americans are investing heavily in creating the perfect space to live, work and play. Modern homes feature kitchens that are bigger than an Amazon data center. With center islands the size of Delaware. Those enormous spaces are built for entertaining. Many homes now feature institutional gas-fed appliances from companies like Wolf and Viking. Some feature eight burners, a griddle, and a massive double oven. Who needs eight burners? Those setups are big enough for a viking to cook a wolf.
Sub-Zero refrigerators are large enough to hide a body and can run as much as $38,000. You could feed an army of people with that kind of culinary horsepower, but few do. Don’t forget outdoor entertaining spaces, ice makers, wine refrigerators, and enough kitchen gadgets and knives to equip a restaurant.
So, why exactly are we buying all these industrial cooking appliances to heat up leftover pizza from Tuesday night? Nobody knows.
It's not just entertaining. Americans are spending less time playing cards, attending community meetings, volunteering, visiting neighbors, and generally doing things with other humans. A 2026 study found that the average amount of time Americans spent with friends each week fell from approximately 350 minutes in 2003 to 170 minutes in 2024. That's more than half our friendship time gone in just two decades.
There’s something wrong with the boy/girl ratio in this picture.
But there’s something different about entertaining. See, to invite someone into your home is to bring them into your private life. To possibly meet your kids and the dog and see how you really live. There’s an intimacy in the invitation, especially if they come to stay overnight, to sleep in your home.
Somewhere along the way, we confused hospitality with entertaining. They aren't the same thing. See, entertaining is making sure the napkins are pressed, the unoaked Chardonnay is perfectly chilled and the artichoke dip isn’t too salty.
Hospitality is something different. It’s about making people feel at-home, comfortable and welcome. It’s not about the mis-matched towels in the half-bath. It’s not about the stain on the den carpet where the dog threw up in 2025. As Pastor Hal Brady once said, “We are never closer to God than when we express the simple gestures of friendship and hospitality.” Amen.
We've managed to take all of the fun out of hospitality by confusing it with entertaining. We’ve turned something fun into a high- stakes performance. An evening with friends becomes an elaborate production, as if we could stumble and get a bad review on Yelp! because the couscous was bland.
We've built wonderful places to live. Perhaps we've forgotten that a meaningful life requires more than a place to put your stuff. All those fancy appliances seem to be more about keeping up with the Joneses and less about inviting the Joneses over for dinner.
Which brings me back to that original question. When was the last time you invited a few friends over for no particular reason? Maybe it's time to send an invitation. Order a few pizzas, open a bottle of wine, and leave the mismatched towels exactly where they are. After all, the point was never about entertaining. It was about friendship and hospitality.
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