Each week, Miss Manners answers questions exclusively from the MSN audience on all of your etiquette dilemmas. (Have an issue you want help with? Send in a question today.) Read on for this week's hot topics:
DEAR MISS MANNERS,
What to serve to eat after a memorial service for someone who has passed away? It will be at the home of the deceased wife. It will begin at 2:00 in her garden. What is appropriate? I feel pot luck is far too casual. Money is not an issue.
GENTLE READER,
The fad for issuing or offering partial catering assignments for every type of social gathering annoys Miss Manners, who believes, instead, in reciprocal hospitality.
As you acknowledge, casual meals, such as picnics and at club meetings, are exceptions. But gatherings after funerals or memorial services are special exceptions. They are not casual, but people do often bring food, to relieve the bereaved of the burdens of entertaining.
In any case, there should be enough to make a light luncheon for those who have attended a mid-day service-- finger sandwiches, salad, and cookies, for example. The food should be cold, so that no one has to do last minute heating, and easily portable, as the event takes place in a garden.
Of course if money is not an issue, you could have a full, professionally catered meal, but Miss Manners does not recommend it. Mourners will want to move around and talk to one another, and the food is secondary.
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DEAR MISS MANNERS,
I've never been really financially or socially successful in my life compared to other people including my family members, although I take pride in myself and my children.
We are a poor family and we don't really get many chances to travel or attend parties and social gatherings. I'm close to my sister, who, however, tells me very little about the parties and trips, etc. ,in her life. I feel she "spares" me the details of her life so that I won't be jealous. Maybe I would feel a little jealous, but feeling like a child that needs to be sheltered makes me feel smaller.
What should my response be when I ask my sister where her family is off to and she says 'Oh, just out of town"?
GENTLE READER,
"Oh, come on, tell me; you know I get a kick out of your adventures." The idea is to reassure her that you enjoy her pleasures without in any way comparing her life with yours. Therefore, the admission that you might be a little jealous will remain a secret between you and Miss Manners.
Judith Martin's latest book is No Vulgar Hotel: The Desire and Pursuit of Venice. She is also the author ofMiss Manners' Guide toExcruciatingly Correct Behavior(Freshly Updated). She and her husband, a scientist and playwright, live in Washington, D.C. They have two perfect children, of course.
