Miss Manners^®

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Would Miss Manners care to advise one on how to deal with relatives who persist in sending a video camera around on Christmas Eve and having each family tell about their year?

The problem is that there is a wide variation in income levels in the family, from a multimillionaire to several solidly middle-class working-couple families to a single mother who scrapes to put food on the table.

Would Miss Manners care to speculate on which family member takes the opportunity to expound on the latest African safari, daughter's private-riding lessons and horse, and son's new SUV? Judging from how intimidated this middle-class-family member feels, she can only imagine what the single mother must feel. Would Miss Manners care to furnish a response that would sweetly portray the ire this custom invokes?

GENTLE READER: With no intention of defending the cheeky practice of forcing people to perform for cameras, Miss Manners fails to see why you interpret this as a financial report.

How each person wishes to account for his or her year is a wide-open question, which does not require opening financial accounts of purchases made. Surely the relatives who are not rich have some accomplishments or other news to relate, possibly -- since you regard this as a contest -- even more than the rich ones. At the very least, they are less likely to have a daughter who falls off her horse and a son who crashes his SUV.

This is not to say that Miss Manners believes that everyone must go along with this project. It would be sensible to announce that one is camera-shy, but looks forward to seeing the others' reports.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: For the first time, this year I'll be spending Christmas away from my immediate family and with my fiancee and her family, with whom I am on excellent terms. Typically, my family will dress up in our best formal clothes for Christmas church services, whereas my fiancee indicates that her family usually takes a more business casual approach, even for Christmas.

While I have absolutely no problems with her family's choice of dress, I would feel uncomfortable dressing similarly for what I feel is an important occasion. At the same time, I do not wish to risk embarrassing my hosts by my choice of attire.

Given the general good nature of my future parents-in-law, I have no doubt that my worries are unfounded. However, proper etiquette is still important to them, and to me, and I would like to know what would be my most appropriate course of action this upcoming holiday.

GENTLE READER: Be grateful you are a gentleman, and not a lady. You can appear wearing a jacket and tie and submit to entreaties that you remove them. Ladies have no such flexibility, Miss Manners assures you. Even if they manage to wear changeable outfits, respectable people do not ask them to remove their clothing.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: With the better stores now giving gift receipts, what is the best protocol when giving a gift? Is it best to include it with the gift?

GENTLE READER: It beats the recipient asking where it was bought or, even more rudely, asking the donor to exchange it. And it saves that ungracious speech by which some people undercut their generosity: "If you don't like it, you can take it back." So yes, Miss Manners recommends tucking it discreetly into the tissues.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I need help before my husband and his father stop speaking entirely! My father-in-law has recently become a stickler for thank-you notes. He and his wife live in another state and mail gifts to our children for holidays, birthdays, etc. Each time we receive a gift from them we have our children call to thank them personally.

My father-in-law feels that we should be sending written notes in addition to the phone calls. My husband thinks that thank-you notes are formal and the telephone calls are more personal and appropriate for an immediate family member. Neither is willing to compromise on the subject and things are starting to get tense.

GENTLE READER: You are in luck, because Miss Manners can make everyone happy: Your father-in-law will get his letters of thanks, and your husband doesn't have to write them.

The children do, as the presents were sent to them. They can make telephone calls when they receive the presents, and then sit down and write those letters. True, this may not make them happy, but proper child-rearing rarely does at the time, and their lives will be happier later for having the habit.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: A co-worker and I had a dispute about six months ago that has left us as co-workers only; no longer friends. It was never a great friendship, but it was amicable.

Yesterday she put a Christmas gift on my desk. I had no idea what to say or do. Last evening and today I have thought about it and decided I would wait until the other people had left around 5 and then return it to her and explain I am really uncomfortable with this gift and am unable to keep it. What do you think?

GENTLE READER: That what you have there is not so much a Christmas present as a peace offering disguised as a Christmas present. Do you really want to reject the offer of peace from someone with whom you still have to work?

Miss Manners supposes that what you want to reject is renewed friendship. Unless the present is a substantial one, you can do that by saying, "I very much appreciate your gesture."

DEAR MISS MANNERS: When planning our holiday party, we were discussing the proper breakdown of the different dress-code classifications. The classifications we came up with are: Black Tie, Formal, Semi-Formal, Business Casual, Casual. We need help clarifying the proper dress for each classification, and in what settings they are generally applied. Also, are these the correct breakdowns?

GENTLE READER: Breakdown is right. The system of allowing guests to know the style of clothing they were expected to wear is in shards.

The old system recognized only Formal and Informal. You had to know the community to know whether that particular set meant that Formal was white tie and Informal was black tie, or Formal was black tie and Informal was business suits, or Formal was ties and jackets and Informal was jeans.

The attempt to fix this by a proliferation of categories has only made things worse. In addition to the ones you mention, other bewildering terms are being tossed about by reckless hosts: Festive Leisure, Creative Black Tie, and heaven knows what else. Not only is there nothing correct about these, there is nothing helpful, either.

If people are still going to have to ask what these instructions mean, Miss Manners would think it a kindness to go back to Formal and Informal so they could ask the question one time and remember the answer.

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Now is the season to think of those more fortunate than ourselves.

At least so it appears from the flood of solicitations that are made toward the end of the year, requesting donations of money from those who are deemed to be such. Hardly anyone seems to be considered below the financial cutoff line for being importuned by friends, relatives, colleagues and strangers alike, through the mail, e-mail, the telephone and both door-to-door and desk-to-desk visits.

Collecting for charity is such a widespread activity that there are entire income brackets who depend upon it for a meal. Miss Manners is not referring to the poor, who can hardly consider such largesse dependable. She means that segment of the rich who give lavishly, but who expect something in return: not only a tax deduction, but a social life, complete with gift bags.

Miss Manners heartily supports charity, and, as in Victorian times, she expects good behavior in return. The difference is that the Victorians expected the objects of their charity to behave well. At best, this led to a lot of showy shuffling and at worst, it ruled out some of the needy on the basis of their neediness.

The good behavior Miss Manners expects is from those who collect for charity. She expects them to observe social decencies toward potential and repeat donors, and to not try to claim that violating etiquette is permitted "because it's for a good cause."

As they know, pity and shame are basic to the disposition to donate money. Pity for the plight of others and shame if one remains selfish. But what many charities prefer are the implied threat of social embarrassment and the enticement of social aggrandizement.

That people give to charity to get their names and reputations around is an occasionally amusing sport that Miss Manners considers unobjectionable. There are worse reputations for which to strive than that of philanthropist. There may be none better, although the difference between acquiring it through others' noticing one's deeds and through trumpeting it oneself is not a small one.

That people also give because they are embarrassed to say no to the particular person who asks is also effective, Miss Manners is aware. This is why charities send friends, neighbors, colleagues and children to do the asking. The onus then is on the prospective donor to weigh the factor of pleasing the importuner along with his interest in the cause and assessment of what he can spare.

It is invaluable to know that there is nothing rude about saying pleasantly, "Thank you, I'll pass on this." Really. Deciding where and how much to give is a serious responsibility of the giver, which should not be abandoned.

But the agents of charity often try -- indeed, are often instructed to try -- to engineer deeper embarrassment. Using such insidious techniques as familiarity with the income and possessions of the prospective donor to extract or raise the donation is a common -- and rude -- practice. Using a venue where cooperative behavior is expected, such as the workplace (especially when a higher-ranking person, or worse yet, a high-ranking person's child, does it) or a social occasion that the guests were not warned was for fund-raising are also rude.

What is fair, and more effective in the long run, is working up an impassioned speech about the goodness of the cause and the good that donations will do: wrenching the heart, rather than tweaking the ego.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: What are chocolate spoons? Are they for stirring hot chocolate (as teaspoons are for tea), or are they for eating chocolate desserts such as mousse or pots de creme? I have a chance to buy some in my pattern, but I am unsure as to their proper use. I even asked a good friend who is a former White House social secretary, and she's not sure.

GENTLE READER: Then she could not have worked for an 18th century administration, which was when chocolate became such a prized drink that it developed its own spoons, pots and cups. However, your other guess has some validity, as the hot chocolate of that time was so thick that it might well be mistaken for a pudding.

Chocolate spoons are short and round-bowled, but the pots and cups are tall and lack the bellies of coffee and teapots and cups. Miss Manners is afraid that the same cannot be said of people who (understandably in her view) prefer chocolate to coffee and tea.

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