Use Good Timing When Party-Hopping

Dear Miss Manners: Both my family and my husband’s traditionally gather on Christmas Eve with grandparents, parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews. We have chosen to attend both parties every year, which means that we begin the evening at one location, stay for a couple of hours, drive about an hour to the next occasion and finish the evening there.

I am always left feeling guilty for not spending “enough” time with either set of relatives, and disappointed that I have not really enjoyed the holiday.

We now have a child, which makes the issue more complicated. For several reasons, we do not see either family altering its traditions any time soon.

I have suggested that we alternate, visiting only one family each year, but my husband feels that we should contrive to attend both parties every year. If we do attend, what are the rules of etiquette regarding entrances, departures and length of time spent at each party?

Gentle Reader: Why didn’t you marry the boy next door? Then both families would have been able to celebrate together. And if they didn’t want to do that, you would at least have had a shorter commute.

Miss Manners does not want you to run yourself ragged, but she sympathizes with your husband’s reluctance to let two years pass without seeing a whole set of relatives together, and, now, without letting them fuss over your child. So before she gives you the rules for party-hopping, she would like to revisit the division question.

Geographical mobility, divorce, feuds and combinations of these have made the holiday tug so common that Miss Manners would be astonished if there are not others in your two families who are expected to be at least two places at the same time. They may be more amenable than you think to rescheduling, so that one family meets on Christmas Day or New Year’s.

Or you could attend only one Christmas Eve party but entertain, or pay calls on, the other family during the week. If the relatives live in the same area, you can simply schedule another get-together; if they don’t, but travel to be at this reunion, surely they stay more than one day.

Now the rules:

Holiday party-hopping was not designed for events located an hour apart and obviously intended to occupy a whole evening. Only afternoon parties, or after-dinner ones (for example, neighborhood caroling, with people dropping in and out) lend themselves to this.

The correct method is to arrive at the first party just when the hosts are beginning to wonder if they remembered to mail the invitations, and to stay until most people have arrived, a minimum of an hour. This enables you to arrive at the second party with the latecomers and to stay until its conclusion.

In neither case should you try to sneak in and out without greeting and taking leave of your hosts. You must tell the first ones how much you hate to tear yourselves away, and the second how eager you were to get there.

Dear Miss Manners: I am in my early 20s and I have to attend a black-tie dinner soon. Since I know nothing about such affairs, could you please advise me of the proper attire for a female?

Gentle Reader: You know more than you think. Just knowing that you must be attired when going out for a formal evening puts you ahead of most other ladies.

Miss Manners has seen many a lady out for dinner wearing less dressing than the chicken. Others mistake ball dresses for dinner dresses and take up more than their share of the space below the table. And still others make no concession to the formality of the occasion and appear in ordinary clothes, thus making the gentlemen retroactivity surly at having been required to dress up.

A proper dinner dress is narrow, generally floor-length and equipped with sleeves. As a tantalizing contrast to such primness, it has a plunging neckline. Just not one that is all the way down to the plunger.