Short cuts to party etiquette
By Sheryl-Lee Kerr
Party anyone? Oh, right, you're double booked. I understand. Trying to juggle your Christmas parties is the equivalent of doing the higher mathematics and physics computations for picking the footy tips.
But fear not, let us help get your mangled social calendar straight. Just follow these simple steps:
1) Say no to all invitations.
There. It's that simple.
Alas, if you have already accepted the invites, then it helps to know exactly what you're in for. There are three distinct party types: the work bash, the friends get-together and the family compulsory endurance event.
The work bash involves copious quantities of alcohol; the office photocopier and the quiet clerk from accounting no one ever suspected had a cha-cha with a pot plant in him.
Golden rules to remember at a
work bash:
Ladies, your boss's toupee is not a frisbee.
Gents, do not tell your female boss what you'd like to do to her knockers, even if you genuinely meant the brass ones on her door.
Your doing the limbo with a married co-worker will make it to the office noticeboard by 8am Monday, complete with 8x10 photos and a full transcript of everything that was said after your immortal line:
“Look, since it’s just the two of us here ...”
The friends get-together is a bit different. It involves you catching up with people you've been talking about catching up with since the last Christmas party. Although you like them just fine, the only reason you're doing it at all is so you don't have to bother sending them Christmas cards. It's okay; they feel the same.
Friends golden rules:
This is not the time to leeringly confess you've always thought your friend's other half is “a bit of all right”. Not unless you like eggnog as seasonal headwear.
Conversely, do not congratulate a friend on getting rid of her “louse” partner who you “never did like”, because she will doubtlessly reply she's “getting back together with him and, in fact, here he is now...”.
The third party type is the family gathering, which is a useful outlet, not unlike civil war re-enactments, to remember old conflicts and relive them over and over.
This entails getting certain family members drunk enough to let down the guard and tell each other exactly what they think of each other in a more colourful way than usual.
It is also your chance to catch up with relatives you thought were dead - although even then it's hard to tell.
Family golden rules:
Mention the war at your peril.
Don't make starving Ethiopian jokes to your in-laws while eyeing their ridiculously overladen table with seven types of potato salad and 12 courses.
Ignore any sounds of adult men rolling around under the table sorting out their differences with fisticuffs, even if the cherry bowl is now working its way slowly down the table and your gravy has a shimmer to it. And if no one else seems to have noticed, don't worry. They have.
But if all else fails, just repeat to yourself that there are only 12 more months before it happens all over again.
© The Advertiser & Sheryl-Lee Kerr - TUE 01 DEC 1998,
Page 039