DEAR MISS MANNERS: I was feeling tortured last year at Thanksgiving and was wondering how to avoid that feeling this year.

For the last 20 years, my husband and I have been invited to the house of his brother and sister-in-law. I really do appreciate all the work that is involved. However, people do thank them for their work, and they get to keep the leftovers.

We drive more than eight hours (sometimes it's worse, depending on ice and snow, overheated engines and the number of diaper changes), and last year was emotionally the worst. Our 16-year-old daughter decided to use that time to tell us how much she hates us. Our 13-year-old son, usually very calm, was upset when somebody stepped on and broke his boom box. My 6-year-old said every other minute, "Are we there yet?"

When my husband started yelling, I asked to get out of the car, but that doesn't really work because then it takes longer to get there.

The minute we got there, my brother-in-law sent me right out for pizza for the whole family. I think he wanted to be sure that we pay our share and do our share. My sister-in-law made an angry comment that we hadn't brought the kind of Scotch they wanted. (I couldn't find it.) The next day, I grocery shopped, and I always spend more than $200, which I'm happy to do, except that it's never enough.

I don't think it's an accident that their uncle's wife stopped coming to Thanksgiving as soon as he died. I don't believe she ever felt truly welcome. I know another cousin feels that way, too.

I'd have it at our house, but the others all live elsewhere. I just wish that once they could do the drive, and they might treat us better when we got there.

GENTLE READER: Miss Manners is not as confident that exposure to the behavior in your car would inspire your relatives to treat you better. Perhaps it might shock them into realizing how horrid family life can be when people feel free to unload their ugliest feelings on one another.

Yet that does not seem to have occurred to you. Please, then, allow Miss Manners to make some recommendations.

Before you get into the car, you need to have a pleasant family council, asking for suggestions on how to make the trip enjoyable, or at least bearable, for all of you. A few rules would be in order, such as no yelling and no unloading pent-up grievances. There's not much you can do about "Are we there yet?"

The next topic should be how you can assist your hosts, including showing patience and tolerance if they seem unreasonable, perhaps to set them a good example. In this regard, Miss Manners believes you would find it helpful to avoid dwelling on their great good luck in being able to keep the leftovers in exchange for merely entertaining a houseful of grumpy people.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: The media have been printing and airing lots of photographs and videos of dead bodies. I was under the impression that it is wrong to photograph the dead or take pictures at a funeral. Is it really bad manners, or is it just something I find offensive?

GENTLE READER: It is not, per se, bad manners to photograph the dead in a dignified way. Indeed, representations, sometimes including death masks, were sought as keepsakes by the bereaved in past times.

It is displaying these, including in public venues, that is an etiquette problem and an extremely difficult one. The trade-off for the media is between protecting people from being unnecessarily horrified, and giving them the news of any horrors being committed. Weighing these factors in each case is what Miss Manners considers proper behavior for journalists.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: Several months ago I read in some food magazine that when one finishes the entree while dining in a restaurant, it is considered good manners and considerate to the server or busboy to use your napkin to wipe clean a small area at the edge of the plate so the fingers won't be "soiled" when the plate is picked up for removal.

As I recall, the article I read said it mattered not if the napkin was cloth or paper or whether the restaurant was "high class" or a greasy spoon.

My wife and daughters rebuke me for doing this every time we eat out, and they believe I never really read such a "stupid" item. Now I'm beginning to wonder if I did myself, as none of our friends or associates have ever heard of such a "courtesy." How does Miss Manners feel about this?

GENTLE READER: Both more and less delicately than your wife and daughters. She would never call such a well-meaning idea stupid, but -- oh, yuck!

Here is why this renegade "rule" is stupid. Whoops. What Miss Manners means to say was, here is why this supposedly thoughtful notion is actually thoughtless:

It assumes that the server doesn't know how to do the job properly, which requires gripping the plate from beneath, with a steadying thumb touching only the rim. Anyone who carries a plate with thumb planted into its surface is not going far in the restaurant business, where people do not care to eat from a plate that has received that personal touch.

It assumes that you don't know how to eat without leaving your plate entirely smeared to its edges.

It shows a callous disregard for the person who must pick up or launder a napkin that has been used as a cleaning rag.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: A friend who will be retiring soon has worked 30 years for a major company. The company will be giving a retirement celebration for him.

Is it ethical for his wife and daughter-in-law also to give a retirement party? I have never heard of individuals giving retirement parties. Normally it is the company that gives the party.

We live several thousand miles from them and will not be able to attend either event. Other than sending a nice card, should we also include a gift?

GENTLE READER: Ethical? Unless there were threats used in a shake-down to suggest that sending a present would be prudent, Miss Manners sees nothing unethical about a family party celebrating retirement. Many companies have skipped doing this, and colleagues or relatives have marked the occasion so that a worker doesn't simply slip out unnoticed.

Even in this case, where there is also a company event, she doesn't object to a private celebration, although it is odd to endow it with such importance as to assume that guests would be willing to travel to attend. A parting gift for faithful service is, however, the sole responsibility of the employer. You need send only your congratulations.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: About half of all those free return-address labels I get have my name preceded by "Mr." If someone wants to call me mister, that's fine, but I don't believe it's right to call myself that. Even if I did want to give myself an honorific, it wouldn't be mister, because I'm not a mister. I'm a Lt. Col., USAF-RET.

As a practicing conservationist who hates waste, it pains me to think of all the doctors, military people, women whose first names sound like men's, etc., (as well as real misters who don't believe it's right to give themselves a title) who are receiving and discarding millions of labels that call them mister.

It seems to me that if these large organizations don't have people on their staffs who know the proper forms of address, their printers should.

GENTLE READER: Indeed they should, because it is complicated, and Miss Manners is afraid that even you don't have it quite right. Please wait a moment while she struggles with herself about whether she should just let the point go, because you are erring on the right side and because she doesn't have a lot of emotion invested in address stickers.

As you point out, it is frightfully pretentious to call oneself mister, or, for that matter, colonel, in speech, as one's signature and (for everyone except Miss Manners) in any spoken or written reference one might make to oneself.

However, this does not apply to one's name as it is engraved or printed on personal cards or writing paper, where the convention is to use the formal name complete with honorific. Miss Manners makes a point of this because of the current error of issuing formal invitations, such as wedding invitations, with the honorifics omitted.

In your case, the question is moot, as your correct title was not used. Consider that it saves you the effort required to think of those little stickers aspiring to formality.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: At a co-worker's wedding, a brief note was included in the program given to all guests, saying, "In lieu of party favors, a donation has been made to St. Mary's Hospital in the name of the bride's grandmother."

I, of course, said nothing about this to anyone at the wedding, but I privately mentioned later to some friends who also attended the wedding that I thought this note was tacky. Party favors are something you give to your guests to thank them for attending your special day. Wouldn't it have been more appropriate to give a donation in lieu of asking guests to bring gifts?

My friends all gave the same reply: "Did you really want a stupid little party favor?" That, of course, is not the point. Your thoughts?

GENTLE READER: Your friends are not asking you the right question. Miss Manners' question is, Why do you feel stupid when your friends are telling you that they did you a favor?

The answer: Because you were surely not clamoring for party favors, which are more associated with children's birthday parties than with weddings, when they dangled one in front of you, whipped it away, and then preened themselves about being charitable for doing so.

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