Miss Manners^®

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband and I enjoy eating dinner with our children at home most nights. The children are generally charged with setting the table and clearing plates, and an issue has arisen relating to spoons.

I urge the children to include a spoon in the place setting, but then (perhaps unreasonably), I counsel against its use. This generates much eye-rolling from my husband, who believes that it is appropriate to use one's spoon to eat such things as peas that are difficult to eat with a fork.

My children have asked me to explain the point of putting a spoon on the table if they aren't going to be allowed to use it. I tell them they can use the spoon for their dessert, but that seems a less than satisfactory answer given that dessert is rarely part of our evening meals.

Should I tell them to stop including spoons in the place setting, or should I give in and allow them to use their spoons to eat their dinners? Or should I continue my unreasonable practice of insisting on spoons but not permitting their use?

GENTLE READER: When you figure out why you want a spoon on the table while prohibiting its use, be kind enough to explain your reasoning to Miss Manners. Makes no sense to her.

Not that she is siding with your husband. Grown-ups eat their main courses with forks and knives, which she supposes he would do if the spoon were not lying around being useless.

In spite of its mean reputation, etiquette does not lay such traps. A correctly set table contains exactly the implements with which to eat the food that will be served, and places them in the order (outside to inside on both sides of the plate) in which they are to be used.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have several lovely pieces of jewelry, including a very expensive watch, given to me by my ex-husband during happier times. What do I do now?

GENTLE READER: Enjoy them as best you can, whether that means wearing them or selling them or tossing them. Broken engagements require the return of valuable love tokens, as Miss Manners keeps trying to persuade the broken-hearted. Broken marriages, however, do not.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have lost several friends this year and wonder how to write a note on my holiday cards for the surviving spouses. I know that they will not have happy holidays this year, so it seems inappropriate to wish that for them.

How can I express that I am thinking of them at a time of year that is sure to be sad when my card shows my happy family?

GENTLE READER: Presuming that you wrote your condolences at the time of the death, the mere sight of your pleasant-looking family portrait should not be offensive. Nor is it incompatible with your writing to the bereaved that you are thinking of them. You would hardly want to send them sad faces.

But Miss Manners agrees that if the picture or the greeting on your card is jolly or jokey, it should not be sent. A serious card, or simply a note on your writing paper, would be the way to show that you have not forgotten.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: My relatives are angry with me for not distributing a list of what I want them to give me for Christmas!

I understand that picking the perfect gift is not a challenge relished by everyone, and that "wish lists" and gift registries have become de rigueur, but somehow the whole thing feels to me like it's just gone too far!

If I'm going to tell you what to buy for me, you might as well give me money so I can buy it myself.

In fact, let's just exchange money. Come to think of it, how about we all go out and buy things we like for ourselves, and then show off our new purchases on Christmas morning? It seems that's what gift-giving has devolved into.

Any attempt to discuss this issue always results in hurt feelings and an insistence that I'm "hard to buy for." What can I do?

GENTLE READER: It appears that the exchange of presents has become too hard for everyone:

Too hard to use the imagination to think of what might please a relative or friend. Too hard to enjoy surprises when one was intent on receiving what one had ordered. And too hard to accept the occasional mistaken notion as being well intentioned.

What was once an exciting and charming custom has therefore deteriorated into the joyless, rote experience you describe -- and that Miss Manners has been protesting against for years. We have become a nation of beggars and their shoppers.

Far from spreading pleasure, this brings out the worst in most people -- increasingly blatant greed and the resentment that you encountered.

And from the good-hearted it brings on the inevitable solution of donating to charity instead.

This sounds like a noble solution -- who can object to giving to charity? -- but it should be recognized for what it is: the demise of the ancient custom of good will expressed through symbolism.

Substituting giving to charity is an adaptation of the "in lieu of flowers" directive associated with death. The idea was that rather than suffocate from an overload of flowers, the bereaved would be more comforted with support of research on the disease that caused the death, or with donations to the dead person's favorite charity.

But adopting this for Christmas and other present-exchanging occasions comes with its own problems. Not everyone agrees on what causes are worthy. Miss Manners often hears from targeted givers who angrily oppose supporting the charity named, as well as from expectant recipients who angrily oppose the charity that the donor substituted.

Miss Manners suspects that charities benefit less than is supposed when people declare they are honoring others but do not increase their donations above what they would have given their favorite charities anyway. They also receive the immediate benefit, the tax credit.

But at best this destroys the need to think about the needs and desires of people one loves. Which seems to be fine with your relatives.

You can go around this while apparently placating them by saying, "A book (or a CD or a DVD) you think I might enjoy."

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is it proper to substitute one party for another if the one named on the invitation is not able to attend?

GENTLE READER: No, no, no, no. And no again. Miss Manners reminds you that this is an invitation, directed personally to those to whom it is sent because their presence is wanted; it is not a ticket that says "Admit two."

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: My partner and I are having a disagreement over the proper etiquette concerning holiday cards. I have always included a very short, handwritten note in each holiday card, including the recipient's name and that of their family members, as an addition to the greeting printed on the inside of each card.

My partner complains that this is a colossal waste of time, and implores me not only to abstain from writing a greeting, but also to purchase a stamp of our combined signatures that we can then imprint on every card. Short of this, he says we could create a "form greeting" on the computer and run each card through the printer, which would automatically fill in the recipient's name and family information.

I think that such an impersonal greeting would be rude. Perhaps the card envelope may have a printed address but surely a handwritten note inside is the most appropriate.

My partner insists that since most of these greetings I write are very similar in wording, the recipients would know that I spent little time on their particular card, and would not be offended by a typed message instead.

However, this sounds very rude to me, and suspiciously like the form "holiday newsletter" which I deplore. Your thoughts?

GENTLE READER: Who are you, Tiny Tim, that you think personal sentiment should be part of the holiday?

And if the gentleman thinks your own handwritten sentiments will be scorned, what does he believe you would accomplish with a preprinted formula?

Miss Manners would be wary of such a one, in regard to life, as well as to correspondence. But perhaps his attitude would be welcome to those who feel that the holidays have not become sufficiently rote and commercial.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: After we had passed the salad bowl around the table, my younger teenaged son helped himself to the salad by using his hands to pick out the assorted pieces he preferred.

When reprimanded by his father and grandmother, he replied that he would never behave as such in public, but at home manners could be more informal, and that, after all, he had not touched any of the remaining salad, eliminating any health concerns. He said that family is where one could relax and not worry about conventions.

To some extent, I believe he is right, but where should one draw the line? If he knows the rules for public behavior and there is no logical reason to forbid using ones hands, is this a matter of concern?

GENTLE READER: A matter for concern? It is a full-fledged etiquette emergency.

Miss Manners hates to break this to you, but your son is not the master of two sets of manners, formal and informal. The style he is using is piggy manners, and he is arguing that the disgust of his relatives has no weight with him.

That he also knows and employs charming manners that he uses in the presence of those whom he cares less about is something Miss Manners very much doubts.

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