Top 10 Holiday Dinner Guest Tips
by Spence Cooper on 12/17/09 at 10:56 am
No Offense Pee-Wee
Hopefully, many of us will be invited to dinner parties this holiday season. Guests tend to overlook the countless hours spent by dinner hosts/hostesses in preparing for late afternoon or evening festivities: there is considerable time and expense involved in shopping for appetizers, a main course and dessert, as well as in food preparation and table arrangements, and in planning a guest list and sending invitations.
In addition to shopping and food preparation, most hosts will devote hours to cleaning their home — vacuuming, dusting, shining silverware, sparkling hallway mirrors, scrubbing the bathroom tub and sink, and laying out fresh towels. And once guests leave, hosts must clean dishes, pick up glasses, and possibly call guests who’ve left items behind. I’ve known some hosts who’ve spent two or three days preparing for a dinner party.
In order that you may qualify to be memorialized as a gracious dinner guest in annals of The Host Book of Worthy Guests in the sky, here are ten tips to ensure your placement in that prestigious company.
1. Don’t be Early, Don’t Be Late
This tip is so fundamental you’d have to be cretin to break it. Only a nerd in a Pee-Wee Herman suit would show up early to a dinner party, and there’s no excuse for being late. If you’ve never been to the dinner party residence, for God sakes get directions. Ask what time guests are expected to arrive, then correctly estimate your driving time based on traffic levels for the time of day and day of the week. If you cannot attend, call your host. If you were sent an RSVP, please don’t forget to respond.
2. Bring a Gift
It’s customary that dinner guests bring a decent bottle of wine, or champagne to a dinner party. Don’t buy cheap wine from the discount rack unless you know the wine is truly a quality buy. If your host doesn’t drink, flowers, an attractive plant or a fancy dessert are good alternatives.
3. Turn Your Cell Phone Off
Unless you’re a doctor or have children, you should leave your cell phone in the car. If you must bring your cell phone to the dinner party, at least turn it on vibrate mode.
4. On Children and/or Companions
If you’re attending a dinner party where children are invited, and you bring your little brats, be sure to lay the law down on behavior. No screaming or running and always “please and thank you”. Don’t bring a companion you hardly know or recently picked up in a bar. Come on.
5. Dress Code
If you’re attending a formal dinner party you will obviously know what to wear, but if you’re invited to a dinner party by a friend and you’ve never met the host, make dress code inquires.
6. Table Manners
Don’t begin eating until everyone’s been served and the host has been seated or until the host gives dinner guests permission to begin eating.
7. Don’t Become Inebriated
Sometimes before meal cocktails can take a belated toll — especially on an empty stomach. And if wine is served with dinner, the wine combined with drinks you’ve consumed beforehand may affect your behavior in a way you may end up regretting for many months to come. Keep tabs on your spouse or companion’s drinking as well. There’s nothing worse than a cheap drunk.
8. Don’t Wear out You’re Welcome
Everyone can sense when it’s time to go, unless of course you presume that your presence is so gripping that despite subtle hints to the contrary — like yawning — you think your host will beg you to stay. And don’t monopolize on farewell remarks. Leave gracefully.
9. Thank Your Host
Don’t forget to thank your host for a lovely evening. Make your host aware of how you appreciate all the preparation involved. Compliment your host on the table arrangements and a beautiful home. Offer to help bring glasses and plates into the kitchen.
10. Send a Thank You Card
A day or so after the dinner party, send your host a thank-you note or card for their hospitality. Even a phone call extending your appreciation is a real touch of class.
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