Miss Manners 12/9

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I enjoy picking out “just the right gift” for various family members at Christmas. However, each year, several family members ask me what gift they should purchase for my children. My mother insists that I am being difficult for not providing her with a gift list.

I find these requests incrediblytacky. Am I being unreasonable for being unnerved by this practiceand not participating?

GENTLE READER: Although Miss Manners believes that the meaning behind giving presents is the thought put into their selection, she is not dogmatic on the point. Being unnerved by your mother’s request for help, or calling it tacky, is too emphaticfor holiday cheer.

It has been some time since your mother had a 10-year-old. Treat her request as a genuine desire for guidance on what would be meaningful, which requires providing something more than a rebuke and something less than a list of catalog numbers.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: In a recent delivery of my daily newspaper, there was a letter in rhyme from our paper deliverer touting her services throughout the year. I received the same “poem” from our previous carrier, and most years, I sent a holiday gift (monetary) in the mail. This new carrier, however, also included a self-addressed envelope to accompany her letter.

While I am generous by nature, this was a turn-off. There’s a part of me that would like to respond in writing that I normally send a check to the carrier, but because she included an envelope, I was offended. Or should I give up, succumb to the convenience of not needing to address an envelopeand simply write the check?

GENTLE READER: Do you wish to be the customer in apartment 2B who expressed gratitude for a year of service or the grouch who (rudely) corrected another person’s manners? If, after you have chosen the former, your carrier neglects to send a thank-you letter, in rhyme or not, then next year you have Miss Manners’ permission to skip the holiday gratuity – without an accompanying etiquette lesson or reason.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Here come the holidays, and with them come gifts shipped from various online retailers. Last year, a gift arrived with no indication of who sent it! How can one learn whom to thank? Casually working the conversation around to the topic of anonymous gifts arriving in the mail is burdensome, but possible. Unfortunately, the “suspect” I had in mind for last year’s mystery gift was a person I see only rarely, so that didn’t work out. This year, I want to be prepared with a strategy that (I hope!) you will supply.

GENTLE READER: In these days of online shopping, matching unmarked presents with their givers appears likely to become a permanent feature of the holidays. While Miss Manners recognizes this is less welcome than the gifts themselves, she takes consolation in the likelihood that the number of suspects is limited. It is therefore not unreasonable to expect a limited effort to identify the perpetrators.

Calling someone you have fallen out of touch with does not seem like a major imposition and may, in fact, add to your – and their – holiday cheer.

Send your questions to Miss Manners at her website missmanners.com.