Is It Rude for Guests to...

Is it rude for guests to come without a house gift?

Among our friends and neighbors, the accepted  behavior/manners if invited for a Shabbat or Jewish Holiday meal is to bring something, flowers, wine, or something for the meal.  Nowadays, among our usual hosting/visiting neighbors, I make vegetables, usually baked vegetables in a disposable aluminum tray.  To people we don't know all that well or who live a distance away, we'll bring a bottle of wine.  Most of us have our "usual" contributions to the meal when we are guests.

There have been times when we get calls to take visiting students or other strangers who've come to Shiloh for a Shabbat meal.  It is very rare that these guests bring anything, anything at all. 

When the guests are from some program, I'm surprised that their madrichim, group counselors don't instruct them that it's rude to come empty-handed.  We are not the program's dining room/food service.  Their tuition doesn't go to us and our food budgets.  I hope they say "thank you" to the staff who serve them wherever they are learning, an act which costs nothing.  The program madrichim  should help them organize at least minimal gifts to be given to each hosting family, whether for a meal or sleeping arrangements. 

I don't agree to host in expectation for presents.  I just think that the guests should learn to recognize that we're doing a favor and they should show thankfulness and politeness.

Not long ago, we got a call from a neighbor soon before Shabbat asking us to host some people who just wanted to spend a Shabbat in Shiloh.  We agreed, and I quickly made extra food for them.  Now, these guys weren't poor students.  They worked and one was wealthy enough to own a car, being amazed that we have always managed without one.  They came totally empty-handed, as if we existed to serve them.  I don't even remember a proper "thank-you."