OT: More party etiquette

We went to a holiday party this weekend, and I have to say
that if I had it to do over again, I probably would have turned
it down. The people that gave it are good friends of ours
that we don't see as often as we'd like, and there were other

dragonlady...

I know what you mean. I have enjoyed tupperware parties, because I like
their stuff.

And when my kids were small, I DID throw an annual Discovery Toys party
(again, a party was the only way to get their stuff -- and I LOVED their
stuff!)

But my invitations were almost apologetic, and only extended to folks
who I knew also loved the stuff.

people there that we haven't seen in a long time. It's just
that it was so darn much *work* to go to this party!

First, the hostess asked us to bring a cheeseball. I didn't

Ericka Kammerer...

really mind that. If she hadn't asked, I'd have offered, and
it was flattering that she remembered something I'd brought
before and asked for it. We took some fudge too.

Nikki...

I'm with you. Have the fun party - forget the gifts. The whole gift things
takes away from the fun for me...regardless of how the gifts are handled.
My ideal would be if everyone only gifted people they were very close to.

Then they asked us parents to bring small gifts for our
own kids. I know where this came from -- in years

Ericka Kammerer...

past they've had something more like a Secret Santa
gift exchange and with so many kids of so many
different ages, it got to be unwieldy. So I guess they
decided this would be easier, and the idea that the
kids could come to a party and not get a gift didn't
enter their mind. But still, I already get them gifts
from us, gifts from Santa, gifts for the stocking, and
gifts "from the grandparents". To have to come up
with yet *another* gift for my own kids was rather
annoying.

dragonlady...

I understand doing this at some sort of organizational function: that
is, one church I know has Santa distribute gifts to the kids, and each
parent is expected to bring a book for Santa to give to their kid.

But doing it at a private party just strikes me as bizzare.

Ruth Baltopoulos...

This obviously varies by location, as many things do! We
have them around here *all the time* at private parties
around the holidays.

Caledonia...

Wow -- I've never been to one of these, and I think we're in the same
area or thereabouts. We have been to parties where you are assigned
something to purchase for an elderly nursing home resident (e.g., last
year we brought robes, this year slippers, soaps, and a book), or where
you're requested to bring a gift for a homeless shelter clothing drive.

But never have I seen anyone hand anything out to kids, except for
excess amounts of candy :)

*Then* the day before the party, I re-read the e-mail
and realized we were supposed to bring a "couples"
gift as well for an adult gift exchange. *That* was

Ericka Kammerer...

when we regretted saying yes. So we had to run
out at the last minute and get a gift for a couple that
we probably didn't even know. We wandered the
mall for awhile, and then DH came up with the idea
of coffee, so we got them 2 coffee mugs and a bag
of good coffee.

Then as we were going to the party, I had a dreadful
thought: "You don't suppose they're going to do that
thing where you open your gift and if you don't like
it, you get to steal someone else's gift do you?" Indeed
they did. I don't know who came up with that, or why
so many people seem to think it's "fun" but to me, the
idea of opening a gift and then publicly rejecting it in
favor of something you like better has got to be the
very height of rudeness! I suppose it makes you feel
good if you brought the "must have" gift that everyone
wants, but presumably everyone got something they
thought would be good, and so how do you feel if
yours is rejected?

Ruth Baltopoulos...

Ummmm, we do this all the time here in good old New England,
and call it a Yankee Swap. It isn't indiscriminate,
everyone picks a number, and then takes a turn in numerical
order to pick a wrapped gift or 'steal' from someone else.
All in good fun, and I never thought it the least bit horrid
:) The gifts are placed anonymously, and no one seems to
take it personally, nor should they :)

Laura Faussone...

The problem I've had with this kind of thing is that there
sometimes aren't any limits on the number of 'steals' per turn
(i.e., the person whose gift is stolen can steal someone else's,
and so on). It can get really freakin' tedious.

dragonlady...

When we play, there are some limits -- but it's on the amount of times
one item can change hands.

There's actually quite a lot of laughing at these things.

And I must live a pretty tedious life: it is, literally, the only
Christmas party to which I've been invited! (If you don't count an
office party, which I don't, since I couldn't make it anyway.)

Ruth Baltopoulos...

I hear you loud and clear on that one!

I printed out the rules and brought them to one group that I
do this with annually, as they would go 'round and 'round,
arbitrarily based on the whims of a particularly annoying
participant. If done correctly, they can be a hoot, and I
have always laughed my head off at these things.

In a proper Yankee Swap, the gifts are piled in the center
of the group, and everyone draws a number. Lowest number
goes first *and* last. Each person in order picks a present
and opens it, and then decides whether to keep it or 'steal'
from someone else. It goes around ONE TIME (drives me nuts
when people keep going) and the lowest number has last
choice. Simple and fun, no room for hurt feelings :)

bizby40...

So far we've got 3 "for" these parties and 2 "against" (if you
count me). It'll be interesting if more people respond to see
how it plays out.

Not that it will change my mind even if me and MsLiz are
the only ones against it. Maybe I shouldn't take it personally,
but if someone opened my gift and immediately gave it away
for something they liked better, yes, it would hurt my feelings.

As it happened, our gift was opened by the people who
got the last pick -- they could have traded it for anything.

rkbose...

I've encountered this mainly at office parties, where it was a blast. A
certain number of people always bring funny gifts, and that adds to the
atmosphere. The ones I've been to had a 3 times limit on swaps -- i.e.,
if a particular gift has been "stolen" three times, it's out of play
and stays where it is. At the parties I went to, that really worked --

Nikki...

I'm sort of a scrooge so rarely participate in those things but the one's
I've been too seem fairly decent. We call them White Elephant parties and
the idea is to bring a funny or ridiculous gift of low cost. Any one item
can only be stolen only three time, like you say. We also draw numbers and
when your number is up you either decide to open or steal. To steal a gift
you have to steal it before you open one. The person whose gift was stolen
then opens another gift.

Rosalie B....

My daughter's friends (all really good close friends and neighbors) do
this about 10 days before Xmas and it is a white elephant swap - they
can't buy anything. Plus there's only about 10 people there so
there's a limit on how much can be swapped. It is also a pot luck.

The children all get presents bought for them - they don't swap. I
think the children's presents are handled as kind of a secret Santa
thing - each family gets as many children to buy for as they have.
There are 2 families with 2 children and one with one child and there
may be some people (like us) with none or a couple that aren't
married.

I enjoyed it when I went although my dd thought I might not have
anything appropriate so she supplied the food and gifts for us.

grandma Rosalie

cjra96...

Yikes. Ok, I see you at least knew to bring a gift with the first
invitation. However, unless this is an established tradition amongst
all the invitees, the whole concept of issuing an invitation to a party
with a list of Must Brings is rather, um.....rude.

I love potlucks and all, but if that's not already established amongst
all the people involved (in which case no one really does the inviting)
, you don't tell someone to bring something unless they offer.

And yeah, I've thrown about a gazillion parties of all shapes and
sizes. Some more formal, many very casual. But I still never order
guests to bring something - gift OR food!

Clisby...

That's the only way I've heard of doing it - everybody brings a really
ridiculous/tacky/strange gift (like the dancing flower that sings "Santa
Claus is Coming to Town"), and they get swapped around. I didn't
realize people did it with regular gifts.

Anonymama...

My family is doing it with regular gifts this year, in an effort to cut
down on the amount of spending we all do. (Kids aren't included, though.)

there'd be the ONE present several people wanted and they'd keep
stealing it amid considerable laughter. (One time it was a stuffed
white bear that *everyone* wanted to carry home to their kids!) I think
we had a $20 limit on the value.

And they chose to keep it. I think at this party there were
more people against the swap than for it, because very little
swapping went on.

toypup...

It's fine like that. I think some posters are describing the scenario where
each person may open a gift and then swap it if they don't like it,
basically saying they don't like the gift they got.

dragonlady...

I just want to say that this Saturday I'm going to a party where we do
this. It's a "white elephant" type of exchange, besides, so we aren't

Banty...

rkbose...

Office party. You know these guys, they're the people you work with.
Generally, you like them, but they're not close friends. Outside of
work, they may or may not have much in common with you. At an office
party, food, booze, and a few games makes it all fun. The Gift game is
in that spirit. And of course, you want to find a clever gift to take
mainly because a few clever gifts liven up the occasion.

But if I give it away, I'm supposed to do it *discreetly*. But when you have
someone asking after it, what else to do.

Rosalie B....

Tell her you don't like to, or don't have time to mail it back to her.
Which is true.

Banty...

Didn't work. This is my mother. She says "Oh, please let me do this little
thing for you...."

Rosalie B....

She's trying to guilt you. So guilt her back. Say something like -
Oh Mom, I really wish I could do that for you, but I'm sooo busy.. I
feel so bad about it... and I really don't want you to go out of your
way.. etc.

Banty...

Heh. Me trying to out-guilt a champeen guilter.

My mom has made it known that she doesn't 'do' the post office (unless
it suits her of course). But in general she hates mailing packages,
probably because it used to be so much more hassle than it is now, and
she still does it the old way with brown paper and string, and packing
even cheap or unbreakable things as if they were fine china.

What would she do with it if you DID mail it back?

Banty...

Return it to the store, come back with the next weird, non-fitting item. Repeat
repeat.

She wasn't working anymore, and had all the time in the world.

Rosalie B....

Ask her to buy something at a store like J.C. Penny and give you the
receipt with it, so you can return it and get something that fits.

Banty...

Tried that too! (Although at that time I wasn't particularly close to a J.C.
Penney.) She would say "oh, I saw this thing in this little shop and I thought
of you the minute I saw it! I just HAD to get it from you".

Rosalie - this wasn't actually ABOUT getting me clothes that work for me. It
was ABOUT the packages going back and forth, the phone calls, the this the that,
the whole rigamarole.

Rosalie B....

I realize that. For some things we have just gotten all together (my
sister and I) and told mother - don't do this anymore!! We don't like
it and we won't stand for it..

Banty...

Oh, we've done that, too! Like calling "statute of limitations" on my mom's
badmouthing my dad at the seventh anniversary of their divorce. We said "Seven
years - tradition holds that if he were lost at sea and his fate unknown, you'd
be free to marry again. Well, we all need to be free!" It worked.

But this is for things that are really important to us, like I finally
put my foot down and told mom that I did not want to hear any more
about (for instance) what dd#2 ought to do about disciplining (i.e.
smacking or spanking) her oldest child. If she started talking about
that I was going to hang up or walk away. And she's been pretty good
about that - maybe she is just has less confrontational energy now
that she's old.

Banty...

Well, yes that's the kind of things we do, and having a marginally successful
relationship with my mother has always been all about drawing boundaries.

But back to the whole gifting and expecting the gift to be on display thing (and
I think this return thing is kinda related), if it's so common as we see here
with relatives of the generation before us, how on earth do we ever learn how to
act correctly concerning gifts??

Rosalie B....

Well my mom never taught me that I had to display gifts or that I
couldn't re-gift them or anything like that. I do sometimes see
things that I have given displayed in the homes of those people, and I
would hope that it would be because they liked them. I've tried to
have the kind of relationship that they could tell me if they didn't
want the thing, and I would think it would be rude of me to ask where
something was.

grandma Rosalie

Ericka Kammerer...

Chookie...

I am sure *that* is not polite!

I think that's the difficult thing. I think we have a
"lost generation" or two when it comes to these kinds of things.
People thought etiquette was snobbish and insincere, so they
just ignored it, didn't learn it, and didn't teach it (for the
most part). Etiquette is a cooperative system, and without
a critical mass of people participating it makes things very
difficult. More recently, some people seem to be realizing that
etiquette actually has effective solutions for a lot of these
issues, but it's still an uphill struggle getting enough people
participating.

Best wishes,
Ericka

Stephanie...

You sound angry that these parties occur. Am I misreading you?

Banty...

Do you often feel people are angry?

Stephanie...

That's what she sounded like. Since it was a funny thing to get angry over,
I asked. You know how "tone" is in the written word.

Banty...

Do feel upset when other people are angry?

Stephanie...

No. You know what. I always thought your name was actually Banty. How long
have you been signing your first name? I am really oblivious.

Ericka Kammerer...

No, Elisa isn't her name (or at least I presume

enigma...

giggle. i *loved* Eliza! there's a java script
version online somewhere, but it's just not the same.
lee

it isn't). She was making a funny, but misspelled the
name. It should be Eliza:

Banty...

Exactly!

And you're right about the speeling :*)

Best wishes,
Ericka

Ericka Kammerer...

Yep. I don't like them personally, but that doesn't
mean that they shouldn't happen at all. I do, however, think
that they should *not* happen at work parties (because work
parties, if they happen at all, should not put people in
awkward situations with co-workers), and if they happen
at other parties, they should be announced along with the
invitation so that folks like me can decline the invitation.

Best wishes,
Ericka

Stephanie...

I have one friend who has fairly high maintenance parties. Well, she used
to. After a while no one went, so she stopped. But it was infuriating to
have her throw a party that was really all about satisfying her need to have
a party. She did precisely what she thought was fun about hosting a party,
and asked her guests for everything else. After a while, people simply
stopped replying in the affirmative (or at all) to her invites since you
never knew what you'd be roped into. (This is the same woman with whom you
cannot give a reason for not accepting an invitation or she would reorganize
yoru schedule for you. I wonder if she still has any friends?)

When I was a teen, she used buy clothing for me and my sister, and
since she and I are about the same coloring and I didn't really care
much whether clothes fit precisely, I would wear the things she bought
me.

But my sister was a different skin type than we were, and also a
different body type, and she DID care that things should absolutely
fit, so she never wore the clothes mom bought. Mom could see that (we
were still living at home), and eventually she gave up buying my
sister things, but she still buys stuff for me. She bought the suit
I wore at dd#1's wedding for me because I didn't have time to shop
(and don't like it anyway). [For dd#2's wedding, dd#2 took me
shopping to ensure I'd get something, and I wore that dress for dd#3's
wedding and also ds's wedding.]

Or she buys stuff for herself and gives it to me after she's worn it
once or twice. And I actually will wear stuff and then give it to her
too. That works for us, although if I don't like whatever it is, I
tell her I don't want it.

grandma Rosalie

grandma Rosalie

supposed to spend money.

This is, if memory serves, the sixth year for this particular party with
this group of people. (The women and I were in a small group ministry
group that met every other week for years, and we decided we needed a
Christmas party with our partners.)

I always have a GREAT time at this party, and enjoy the wierd "Yankee
Swap" approach. We have fun with it, and I don't think anyone has ever
left feeling rejected. Of course, we pick our gifts KNOWING this is
going to happen -- some of them are decent things that we just no longer

dragonlady...

Wow. If I lived there, then I guess I'd have to get used to it.

Stephanie...

Woo Hoo! Now I jest of course. But really that would not hurt my feelings
too much if the rules based ettiquette was replaced with genuine concern for
fellow man. But unfortunately, I am not seeing that. Is it me, or are people
just too ridiculously selfish? And if so, has it always been this way?

Ericka Kammerer...

Of course they've always been that way. That's why
etiquette was developed ;-) And many of those folks that
you think are ridiculously selfish think that they're
positively *full* of genuine concern for their fellow
men and can't figure out why so many other people are just
too ridiculously selfish. And, of course, the rules of
etiquette *are* based on showing genuine concern for
others (or at least showing you how to appear as though
you wish to show genuine concern for others even if you
don't really feel like it).

Banty...

Furthermore, those souls who are genuintely concerned for their fellow man
(which would include all of us to one extent or another) do *not* necessarily
know what behooves their fellow man. One of the things I like about etiquette
is that it lets their fellow man define for themselves.

So, for example (taking a recent Miss Manners column I can really relate to), a
young person living far away from family *can* have a cherished quiet day at
their own home, taking calls from said own family, and have their "no thankyou"
taken at face value by those who presume they'd rather be third wheels at the
gatherings of neighboring families whom they barely know. People "concerned for
their fellow man" sometimes take it upon themselves to practically drag them
with them despite the "no", or even take the gathering to their home! BTDTGTTS.

This is also that people simply have different interests in matters.

Stephanie...

I think it's a little rude to press someone about what they did with a gift.

Ericka Kammerer...

Yes, it is.

But you know me, never on the right side of ettiquette. What does ettiquette
say about responding to people who are breaking the rules in the first
place?

Ericka Kammerer...

Depends. In general, it is not acceptable to return
rudeness with rudeness. On the other hand, etiquette doesn't
say you have to be a doormat or put up with whatever anyone
else chooses to do to you. So, it would be perfectly acceptable
for you to say that you very much appreciated the thought behind
the gift (which is the important part) but that you were no
longer able to use it and it was simply impossible to keep it.
Period. (And, of course, you wouldn't have gotten rid of
Great-great Grandma's heirloom brooch or other such things
that have particularly high sentimental value and ought to
remain in the family even if you can no longer use them.)

Stephanie...

I was supposed to KEEP it? (Just kidding.)

Or, you could decide that it's not worth having that discussion
and keep the item. When others break the rules, it puts you
in a very awkward place where there's no easy, good, polite
response from you. You just have to do the best you can without
escalating the situation, if possible. You don't tell the
other person what they ought to do (not your job to teach
them manners), and you don't scream and yell at them, but
you can absolutely be polite but firm about what you're going
to do with your own life and your own stuff.

Banty...

So it's OK that I told my mom that I couldn't make it to the post office several
weeks in a row and that poor people need the clothing items more than I do?

(realistically, it was either that or something similar, or yelling at her
eventually)

dragonlady...

I'm not sure Miss Manners would have even required THAT much
information. Some vague, "It was so kind of you to send it." Without
anything else . . .

Which you just can't get AWAY with with some mothers!

Ericka Kammerer...

I think once she'd made it clear that lesser measures
weren't going to work, stating your limits clearly and precisely
is a very reasonable thing to do. If you'd jumped down her
throat with that sort of thing the first time, that would have
been overkill, but under the circumstances I think it was
perfectly justified and certainly superior to yelling at her!

Best wishes,
Ericka

Best wishes,
Ericka

need, some are just silly, some are fun, and some are things to be
avoided . . .

I've been to other parties that did this, too, and have always enjoyed
them.

Now, I'm not sure I'd enjoy it if I didn't already know all the people
well, or if it wasn't something I'd been expecting, but I wanted to let
you know that I, at least, have had fun at these things.

Now I just have to find a second White Elephant to bring . . . we each
have to bring one, which is a good thing, because sometimes the couples
wouldn't agree on what they wanted!

Anyway, I'm being unkind, and I shouldn't be. The
party was actually pretty fun, and they had gone to
an awful lot of trouble for the kids especially. But as
it related to recent topics, I thought I'd vent a little.

Ericka Kammerer...

Well, it'd be unkind if you said it to them,
but it's certainly understandable to vent about it.
I think this is a great situation where etiquette can
keep you out of trouble. Etiquette would say that
any of those things above were inappropriate because
you don't task your guests with jobs when you invite
them to a party. Now, when it's among good friends
and you check with everyone to see if it's okay with
them, maybe you can get away with one of the above,
or maybe even two if they're very good friends and
tolerant. But to heap up all that really is a bit
much for folks who are probably all in the midst of busy
holiday seasons themselves. With a little creativity,
it wouldn't even have been that expensive or difficult
to at least relieve the guests of bringing gifts for
the kids and the food.
I'm totally with you on the "white elephant"
gift exchange thing too. I *hate* those. Both DH's
and my office Christmas parties had them this year,
but fortunately we're not going to either party
(for other reasons, but it's a big bonus in my
mind not to deal with the white elephant thing!).

Best wishes,
Ericka