What to Bring to a Party

Can hosts make special requests? Plus, holiday newsletters that brag and confessing to cosmetic enhancements.

Each year my husband and I have a holiday open house attended by family, friends, and colleagues. Many guests bring small hostess gifts such as wine and candles. While the gifts are greatly appreciated, would it be appropriate to include a note on the invitation asking guests who would like to bring something to instead bring a food item to be donated to our local food pantry?

M.W. in Weymouth

This is a lovely idea, especially this year when food banks and homeless shelters are, sadly, doing a booming business. Be clear on your invitation that bringing the canned goods is optional and meant to be instead of a hostess gift, not along with it. And as long as I'm on the topic, let me issue a general plea for invitational clarity this holiday season. Parties range from the sophisticated to the gemutlich, and guests should know what they're in for. Nobody likes to show up in a reindeer sweater and ornament earrings when all the other guests are in suits and little black dresses -- or the reverse. If you've been invited to a party and aren't sure what to wear, bring, or expect, feel free to call the host or hostess and ask.

Every holiday season we receive a letter from a couple updating us on the status of their family and listing all the vacations and trips that they went on the past year. They have been successful, and we are happy for them. Yet my wife and I are not interested in hearing about all their conquests. In our view, the letter is simply a statement of "Look what we have." Is there a way to tell them to please take us off their list?

R.L. in Newburyport

No, there really isn't a friendly way to say, "I'm not interested in hearing about your life." If you want to end the relationship entirely, that would be an effective way to do it, though not a particularly kind one. If the newsletters bother you that much, why not simply recycle them unread? It's not like being collared and dragged through someone's McMansion on a forced admiration march.

I can't help but wonder, though, if the message you're getting is really the one your friends are sending. The writing of the holiday newsletter poses some tricky rhetorical problems. One doesn't want to be too disturbingly confessional ("Amy very nearly got off the bottle this year, but the tense election season defeated her and she's back to a pint of Jack Daniel's a night. In happier news, I had my first colonoscopy, and the doctor said I had the lower intestine of a 20-year-old") nor too tediously mundane ("I have switched from regular solitaire to FreeCell as my favorite time waster and find it a far more challenging and enjoyable game. The reupholstering of our living room couch has pulled the whole room together in a pleasing fashion and was not as expensive as we had feared"). Travel tales avoid both these pitfalls, and most journeys result in at least a couple of good anecdotes and pictures. Perhaps you're being too judgmental of your globe-trotting acquaintances.

I wear blue-tinted prescription contact lenses and often get compliments on my eyes. When receiving a compliment, should I point out that I'm wearing colored contacts? People sometimes seem a bit angry when they find out my eyes aren't shockingly blue by nature. In a similar vein, if people compliment a designer bag that is in fact a knockoff and say, "That must have cost a fortune!" should I smile and thank them or tell them it is fake?

N.B. in Medford

You needn't confess that your eye color is the result of a decision rather than a roll of the DNA dice. If someone complimented your hair, would you feel obliged to tell them that you had it cut, that it doesn't just naturally grow that way? We all groom ourselves, and we can take credit for the good grooming choices we make, just as we take credit for those bits of genetic good luck that we had nothing to do with. People who feel in some way fooled by this are being silly -- tinted contacts are hardly a new phenomenon.

Similarly, you needn't reveal the provenance of your handbags. It's crass to follow up a compliment with a comment on how much a person must have paid, so you're under no obligation to disillusion those who do so. Of course, if you want to say something, you can. I've always been prouder of my bargain-hunting ability than my earning capacity (and a good thing, too), so I tend to eagerly recount my Filene's Basement or consignment-store conquests when my own posh-looking duds are complimented. Having a bit of a story -- whether it's "Oh, there's this amazing knockoff shop downtown; let me give you the address" or "I bought it in Paris last year -- have you ever been there?" -- in response to a compliment can sometimes be a good way of keeping the conversation perking along.

Miss Conduct is Robin Abrahams, a Cambridge-based writer with a PhD in psychology.