In planning family holiday dinners, figuring out the guest list used to be the easy part. For polite families, the answer to all the ticklish questions about whom to invite was always yes. A resigned yes, but yes all the same.

"Remember last year, when she drank too much and picked fights with everyone? Do we have to ask her?"

Yes. She's your aunt.

"Those children don't play fair and break all my things. I don't want them here."

Yes, but we have to have them just this one day -- they're your cousins.

"After he complained that he hates coming into this neighborhood, and he brought his own food because he doesn't like ours, and he wanted to know why we didn't have a newer car, you said you'd never let him in the house again. Do you mean to say you are actually going to invite him?"

Yes, because it doesn't matter that I can't stand him; he's still married to my sister.

As Miss Manners looks back, those troubles seem minor. Current difficulties are more basic. The debate has become who is entitled to be considered part of the family and who is not.

"Look, I went along when you said we had to include whoever is living with a member of the family, but they're not even living together. Frankly, I don't think he's that serious about her."

"He says that his wife won't come if his ex-wife does, and then he won't come, either. But if we don't invite his ex-wife, she won't let the children come."

"Grandma says she might hook up with one of them but she hasn't yet decided which, and she wants to bring them both."

"Those are not her children, they're his, and he doesn't have custody of them, so that doesn't make them related to us."

On the surface, all of this seems reasonable. If it is accepted that family membership overrides difficulties and dislikes, one should be able to ban the unwelcome who are unrelated.

Yet defining the family in these complicated times leads to etiquette disaster.

Disputing eligibility for attendance at holiday dinners is only one way to produce feuds and hurt feelings. Every year, Miss Manners receives reports about festive gatherings at which certain people who were invited have then been shooed away from picture-taking sessions or omitted from exchanges of presents.

At the same time, she sympathizes with those who are expected to be blind to distinctions between relatives and those who may just be passing through. That an intimate conversation might be conducted in front of strangers, and grandparent-size presents distributed to unknown children, does not make emotional sense.

Serious partnerships and step-relationships are recognized by society, which puts them in the category of like-them-or-not-they're-yours. But for those with families in flux, the compromise is inclusiveness tempered by the hospitality that ought to be offered to all guests.

They must be welcomed and drawn out, but not left out of the rituals. Exchanging presents should be postponed unless there is something for everyone there, although not necessarily full-family bounty. If there are photographic sessions, enough pictures should be taken so that no one feels excluded.

Those who resent having various attachments at family occasions should take comfort in knowing that this puts them in a new light for the relatives who bring them. In case of a family misfit, how gracious the family is may determine whether it is the actual relatives or the not-quite relatives who are more worth keeping.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: You know we spend the greater part of our time in our offices and this has given rise to holding various celebratory events at the office. I am adverse to any events at the office other than a welcome or retirement party and an employee picnic.

I just got an invitation to attend a wedding shower, during my lunch hour. The bride-to-be, an employee of a subcontractor who works for my company, and I have never maintained any friendship outside of the office. At most, we exchange hellos in the hallway and/or exchange documents, etc. I am at a loss here as to how to respond to this invitation. Do you have any ideas?

GENTLE READER: Decline, politely, on the grounds that you have work to do.

Miss Manners notices that people are constantly citing work as an excuse to skip social activities, even in situations where they have far more obligation than you have here, including the obligation of having already accepted the invitation. Only in the workplace is this considered a bizarre reason for skipping a party.

:

DEAR MISS MANNERS: In the relatively distant past, all newcomers to the society of priests to which I belong were given etiquette instructions, one of which cautioned against using our knives to bring food to our mouths. At the time, I was aghast that such a caution was considered necessary.

Fast forward to the present and, behold, I am once again aghast, not at the instruction, which is no longer disseminated, but by the practice of my brothers in religion, a good number of whom regularly lick their knives or use them in lieu of the forks and spoons supplied at all of our place settings.

I have suggested to the cutlery enthusiasts that the practice violates old church regulations as well as perennial etiquette propriety. Getting nowhere with this direct approach, I have settled into looking askance or catching my breath at the offense. While I suspect you will not care to intrude into the internal affairs of faith-based organizations and their Friar Tuck-like dining traditions, I hope you will feel free to express your opinion as an etiquette professional.

GENTLE READER: Although perpetually feeling free to express her opinions, Miss Manners is probably not as adept at forgiveness as you -- and you can hardly expect her to forgive sins of etiquette. All the same, she imagines that if your fellow priests in the past needed basic instructions on how to eat, a newer generation, reared in a time when communal meals at home are rare and etiquette instruction even rarer, would need them even more.

Could you not put this down to ignorance -- which even etiquette treats with pity -- and work out a way to offer them some enlightenment?

That about exhausts Miss Manners' tolerance. If they know the ritual but refuse to follow it, either because they don't care whether they disgust others or because they think there is virtue in violating the conventions, they are more in need of moral enlightenment.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My best friend believes that a wedding gift needs to match the quality/cost of the wedding. She feels that if the invitation states "Reception at the Ritz," you should purchase a more expensive gift.

I believe a gift is supposed to come from the heart, and is based more on how close you are to the couple getting married. If my sister were to get married in the back yard, I would still give her the best gift I could afford. Would you please explain the proper wedding gift etiquette?

GENTLE READER: Really, this is your best friend?

Miss Manners is amazed, considering how different are your respective approaches to personal relationships -- of which presents that are exchanged are symbolic. Your idea seems to be that such ties should be governed by emotion, whereas your friend's sentiment is that to them that has should be given. You may love her anyway, but there is nothing proper about her position.

:

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My lovely wife and I have been married for two months now. We were both virgins before we wed. I mentioned this detail to my mother a few weeks before the wedding, and since that time she has told everybody she knows. (She has since apologized.)

Therefore, we will be in the supermarket or something and someone will walk up to us and say, "Hey, I heard you two were virgins before you got married. That's great!" Then they want to chat about it, in a casual-topic sort of way. It is intrusive and mortifying. I know my mother told whoever she came into contact with, but I feel that info like that should be kept private! What do we say to these people?

GENTLE READER: "We didn't know we had a choice."

Now wait. Before you shouted "WHAT?" you paused for a minute, didn't you? That's because you were dumbfounded by Miss Manners' suggestion.

This is exactly the effect she intends. You don't want to deny the truth of their comment, but you don't want to admit it, either, because, as you have found, that leads to even more intrusive inquiry and patronizing observations. In that moment that they stand open-mouthed, trying to process the implications of that rejoinder, you should say, "I think the produce aisle is this way" and move on.

Now let's go back to the chief culprit. As preposterous as it is for anyone to make such comments, your mother's monstrous indiscretion misled them into believing that you agreed to make this public knowledge. That she apologized is a good thing, but Miss Manners cautions you to preface any other confidences with warnings not to tell.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: A friend and I recently planned to meet for lunch. As she had been extremely busy at work, I offered to meet her on a Saturday at a location nearer to her home.

After I had waited 20 minutes on the appointed day, I left a voice message at her work (she has no home phone), wondering where she could be. I waited around 15 more minutes, then drove home. The drive and wait amounted to an hour and a half to two hours.

The following week, not having heard from her, I called her office expressing concern for her. I was directed to her extension, leaving me to assume that she was all right and at work. I left her another message wondering what could have happened and saying I hoped everything was OK.

After more than a week, I finally reached her and she informed me that she had been in an accident on the way to meet me. We had a genial conversation, and before we hung up I asked her why she hadn't called me. She answered rather curtly that she had been very busy and had a lot of things on her mind. We hung up on good terms.

I am thinking of terminating my relationship with this person, even though I have a feeling she won't even notice.

What do you think?

GENTLE READER: That she probably wouldn't, and that you probably should. But what worries Miss Manners more is that she often says that the only excuse for not showing up after accepting an appointment is being run over by a truck, and forgot to mention that the victim is supposed to apologize anyway, presuming she is conscious.

: