Thanksgiving manners
Miss Conduct, she has had unpleasant cold this week, and the ConductHead is more full of goo than of insights, sadly. So I will send you all over to PeaceBang's Beauty Tips for Ministers for some good advice on Thanksgiving etiquette. (The entire blog is well worth reading, so scroll on down. Should clergy wear sexy underwear? PeaceBang goes there, oh yes she does.)
PeaceBang suggests a fairly active role for guests, which I'm not sure I wholly agree with, possibly because my family contains a lot of women territorial as tomcats who, if they say they don't want you in their kitchen, really don't want you in their kitchen and will react to your grabbing a towel and laughing, "Oh, let me just dry the crystal, silly," much as Tony Soprano would react to your making a pass at his favorite goomar. (Sorry for two Soprano references in a week. Mr. Improbable and I are working through season 6 on DVD. We'll be done soon.) But not all hostesses are like that.
She also gives this excellent piece of advice:
If your host or hostess is single, make yourself a secret Party Spouse. Pick up plates and glasses and bring them to the kitchen. Keep the fire going. Fill the ice bucket. Entertain the children. Answer the door. Be a good fairy.
Good call. I'd also recommend that you, single host or hostess, need not wait for that good fairy to magically appear--you can pre-emptively assign a close friend or relative that role, as well, and I'd recommend doing so. You don't even need to be single to assign a "party spouse"; I do it all the time, Mr. Improbable being rather ... ineffably himself at parties. You can also, and this I highly recommend, ask some of your outgoing guests to look after the shyer ones in the group, or those who may not know the rest of the crowd, and make sure that they get introduced around and made comfortable.
Who is Miss Conduct?
Robin Abrahams writes the weekly "Miss Conduct" column for The Boston Globe Magazine. Robin, who has a PhD in psychology from Boston University, has worked as a theater publicist, organizational-change communications manager, editor, stand-up comedian, and professor of psychology and English. She lives in Cambridge with her husband, Marc Abrahams, founder of the Ig Nobel Prizes, which are given annually for achievements that first make people laugh and then make them think.
