DEAR MISS MANNERS: How long from the time you're invited to one's home for dinner should the dinner be served? Every dinner invite from my in-laws or sisters-in-law tends to cause an argument.

Generally we are lucky if it is under 90 minutes after the invite time. I refuse to think that somewhere north of 30 minutes is acceptable unless there are finger foods supplied or it's stated what to expect. There have been times upward of two hours that people just sit there while the turkey or roast continues to cook -- once two and a half hours, when they forgot to turn the oven on. I do not even have to go as far as saying the turkey was done 70 minutes prior to the actual time dinner was served; that would be another story.

My remedy is to show up 30 to 45 minutes late; however, that could be taken as being rude. Furthermore, if we do not show up on time, they call at one minute past the invite time to make sure we are on our way. Generally we are very prompt for every invite, but we see the caller ID when we get home and find out they called.

Then we get there and dinner is still 90 minutes late. I've been polite, making minor jokes, or even not so polite, but it doesn't seem to faze any of them. Dinner at our house for guests is generally within 30 minutes or less so we can socialize in a relaxed environment after dinner. All it does is cause more arguments. This isn't about who's right or wrong, but what is the proper etiquette.

GENTLE READER: No, it's about who is right or wrong. Family questions always are, in Miss Manners' experience. Contented relatives don't stake their good-natured bets on matters of etiquette.

Propriety requires only that guests should know when to expect to be fed so that they can adjust their stomachs accordingly. Ordinarily, this should not have to be spelled out. It is supposed to be understood that dinner is served in about half an hour after the stated time, just as you say, allowing a bit of leeway for last-minute adjustments ("That's not what you're wearing, is it?") and traffic.

Unfortunately, this understanding has been seriously damaged by the cycle of guests arriving late, dinner thus being served late, impatient guests vowing to arrive even later next time, and so on. Nevertheless, the rule remains in effect, and guests who violate it should expect to find dinner in progress and to be told, "We knew you wouldn't want us to wait."

However, Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners are often served in the afternoon. Football schedules aside, this is a custom left over from the early 19th century, when everyone ate the main meal during the day. It is still necessary to schedule time for relatives to sit around needling one another, but this could be after dinner, when they are cross because they feel stuffed, or before dinner, when they are cross because they are focused on the food to come.

The only way to mitigate this is to alert people when the meal will be served -- "Come at 2, and we'll eat at 4." This does not allow you to skip the socializing and arrive when you can get straight to the food, but it does allow you to fortify yourself with lunch before you set out.

And are you sure that those missed calls were not to say, "If you haven't left, hold off, because we're running late"?

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We should all be grateful that Thanksgiving is no longer celebrated as in the olden days, in the traditional American ways. People who are stuck in gridlock this week, on highways, in airports or within their own intestines, may grumble, but Miss Manners can assure them that things used to be worse.

She realizes how disorienting this is to those given to deploring our cultural and moral deterioration as evidenced by the debased celebrations of patriotic and religious holidays as occasions for self-indulgence. Didn't Thanksgiving used to be a day in which pious folk celebrated peace with wholesome food?

Would our kindergarten teachers have lied to us?

Let us say, rather, that they put a kindly and valiant spin on customs that would now come under their own zero-tolerance policies.

Fortunately, there is enough doubt about which was the first real Thanksgiving to allow for the development of those comprehensible narratives we call history. The Pilgrims have captured the role in popular entertainment, with the Puritans as their understudies, especially after the population could no longer tell them apart. But in anticipation of the modern custom of extolling diversity by having each segment of the population vie for credit, serious claims were also made by the French Huguenots in Florida, the Spanish in Texas, the English in Virginia, and the folks (excluding the summer people) in Maine.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, life was rough enough in all those places to inspire settlers to proclaim days of thanks to God whenever the routine torments of nature gave them a respite, which was not often. Thanksgiving for having vanquished enemies was also common -- as common, that is, as the thankers' victories -- and anticipatory thanks were offered on credit for help with future vanquishing.

That last custom, along with its milder but also historic application to team sports, we have more or less maintained. Others we have let lapse.

While we prate of good fellowship as a defining element of Thanksgiving, we overlook a stunning feature of the Pilgrims' Thanksgiving, which was a show of arms. The three-day Plymouth version of the first Thanksgiving featured hunting and target practice as a way of demonstrating their prowess in case their native guests had ideas about displacing them. Turkeys and targets continued to be shot at Thanksgiving celebrations up until the mid-19th century, when Americans were busy giving thanks for shooting one another.

True, the modern Thanksgiving features family bickering, from which full-fledged feuds sometimes emerge. But that is hardly the same thing.

Overeating is another comparatively tepid custom of ours. Early settlers were rarely lucky enough to have the chance, which is why they were truly thankful for a good harvest, while we are more likely to complain about being stuffed. Public carousing and drunkenness, such as we have relegated to Spring Break week, routinely characterized their celebrations. Begging is another traditional American Thanksgiving custom, lasting until the 1930s, when it was replaced -- by presidential proclamation, in the interest of the economy -- by shopping. We have now pushed both begging and Christmas shopping back to Halloween.

Having thus thrown off the shackles of the past, we are left with a charming holiday of feasts and families. And for that, Miss Manners is thankful.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Two or three times a year, I am invited to dinner at a friend's parents' home, usually for informal family affairs.

I am almost never offered a beverage by my host, hostess or their daughter. I suspect they mean for everyone to help themselves, but I feel uncomfortable hauling open the refrigerator and grabbing something. What is the proper thing to do in such a situation?

GENTLE READER: Try pathos. Miss Manners is afraid that it is the only polite method. Without authorization -- something along the lines of "There are soft drinks in the refrigerator if anyone wants them" -- your hosts' failure to be hospitable does not justify breaking into their supplies.

The one request that is always proper is for water. You put your hand to your throat, assume an apologetic look (brows knitted over a sad little smile) and say, "I'm sorry, but I'm terribly thirsty. Could I trouble you for a glass of water?"

With any luck, they will ask if you would prefer something else, but this might even shake loose the general permission to help yourself.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: Per the invitation my husband and I received to a cocktail party, the dress code was "tenue de ville."

However, after a long day at work, my husband chose the embarrassment of being underdressed to the annoyance of being uncomfortable. He wore dress pants and a dress shirt, but left the tie at home.

When we arrived, the party's hostess skipped the greeting to ask my husband where his tie was. In front of other guests, she said she was sorry she did not have an extra tie, seeming to imply that my husband could not attend the party sans tie.

My husband stomped off after explaining he did not have a tie. She then asked me to ask my husband to go home to get a tie. Since she has a higher position in my husband's workplace, he felt he had to comply. I realize that by the rules of this game my husband was at fault for failing to wear a tie. But, was the hostess' reaction appropriate?

GENTLE READER: If you are asking whether a hostess should let a guest get away with being twice rude, the answer is a sad yes. Hosts should set dress standards, but should not enforce them at the door and risk embarrassing their guests.

But didn't you tell Miss Manners that your husband was volunteering to be embarrassed? Then why is he indignant -- as opposed to disappointed -- that this turned out to be the case? True, the embarrassment should have come from his knowing he was wrong, rather than the hostess's pointing it out, but you gave little indication that he would supply it. On the contrary, he was willing to respect the lady only as his professional superior, not as his hostess. Yet he was outraged that she treated him as a subordinate rather than a guest.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband died in July. I put a black ribbon on our front door, which is still there. It makes me sad every time I come home and see it, but I was told that putting black bunting on your front door was the proper thing to do. I would like to know how long I should leave it on my door.

GENTLE READER: Take it down now. While the custom is rarely practiced these days and Miss Manners can't imagine who told you that propriety demanded it, its function is to symbolize that the house is in mourning and thus discourage any frivolous approaches. When it makes you sad instead of protecting you, it should be removed.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My daughter and I host a Christmas tea every year -- usually a couple of weeks before Christmas (around the 15th or so). This year, because of the busy schedules of many of our 200 guests, the tea will be in early December.

Since there aren't too many days between Thanksgiving Day and the day of the tea this year, would it be appropriate to mail the invitations before Thanksgiving? I usually send them out the day after Thanksgiving.

GENTLE READER: Miss Manners appreciates your reluctance to start in on Christmas before Thanksgiving, but your busy friends need at least two weeks' advance notice if they are to schedule your party before filling up their calendars. Having been bombarded with Christmas-related advertising since Halloween, they are unlikely to accuse you of rushing things.

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