An Entertaining Manifesto

National Wildlife Federation Holiday Cards 2012

Wonderful Little Augury posted recently about an article from a magazine on "Comfort."  Read it here. One definition of comfort in the clipped article, was that comfort is about relaxing and enjoying oneself when being entertained by others." Oh dear, this got me musing....

National Wildlife Federation Holiday Cards 2012

Some time ago, I read an article that entertaining and being entertained has fallen out of fashion in lieu of events in which one must either contribute or solicit contributions or sometimes both.  Please don't misunderstand, I believe in the effectiveness of the charity ball for raising sometimes tremendous funds for great causes.

National Wildlife Federation Holiday Cards 2012

My lament is that dances for which one must buy tickets, have become substitutions for purely social dances and dinners.  Grant you, social dances mostly no longer exist, because people mostly no longer have ballrooms at home.  

World Wildlife Fund Holiday Cards

But it is also the case, that selling tickets allows for a pseudo-social activity on a grander scale than would be otherwise possible privately.  And today it is assumed that bigger is always better.

World Wildlife Fund Holiday Cards

But balls aside, even dinner parties have morphed into odd events.  It once was the case that one's role as a guest was to accept or decline an invitation immediately, send flowers to the hostess the day before, show up on time, in the appropriate attire, with only those specified on the invitation (not three extra people, your toddler and your dog) and send a note of thanks immediately afterward.

Upon accepting an invitation, it was commonly understood that one also accepted the obligation to entertain the hosts at a function of one's own in the near future.  If one felt unlikely to entertain the hosts except over one's dead body, one did not accept an invitation from them.

World Wildlife Fund Holiday Cards

This resulted in a happy circuit of parties where turnabout ensured that everyone entertained, and everyone was entertained.  If you accepted dinner at eight, you could work until seven, shower, dress and show up in a blithe party spirit.  A small but necessary contribution to overall good will and planetary peace.

Nowadays, however, accepting a dinner invitation to someone else's house means you must bring not only your well-dressed, relaxed self, you must also bring a dairy-free, gluten-free dessert, or a vegetable or an appetizer.

Guide Dogs for the Blind.org

Which means you must find a recipe that fits the host's menu.  The responsibility of this will lurk above your head for a week and then it will slip your mind, until the day of the party, when you must abruptly end a meeting to leave work early, run to the grocery in the rain, find parking, shop, unload the bags, make the artichoke dip or green beans or whatever, re-do your hair and get yourself dressed, and then figure out how to transport the offering to your host without getting it all over your Loro Piana cashmere coat and your car.

Or in my case, prevent the frosted cupcakes from being further decorated with bits of hay and horse hair as they cheerfully loll about on the passenger-side floor of my Jeep.

Guide Dogs for the Blind.org

Hosts should consider the possibility, when they complain that nowadays guests do not arrive at a party in the proper spirit, or that guests act as if attending a dinner is an inconvenient duty, that perhaps it is.

Guide Dogs for the Blind.org

Yes, I've heard all of the reasons that entertaining lines are being crossed, but few of them are good.  Although I'll admit a certain empathy for those who constantly entertain friends who rarely entertain in return, thereby asking for contributions purely as a defensive measure.

The Humane Society of The United States

I've heard the argument that friends must band together to help each other entertain in tough financial times.  Fiddlesticks.  Entertaining and being entertained is all the more important when one must stay at home more.  Lavish repasts are not necessary.  From a guest's perspective, take out pizza and beer on the floor in front of the fire is wonderful if I don't have to plan it, order it, pick it up on my way, stop for beer, or clean up.

The Humane Society of The United States

From a host's perspective, my friends have certainly been the benefactors of more than one dinner of tomato soup and grilled cheese, albeit served with fanfare and lots of love.

The Humane Society of The United States

So, having written a manifesto, I now propose a revolution.  No more inviting unsuspecting guests to a "coffee" and then attempting to sell them Tupperware.  And by the way, stop getting miffed when you don't receive a response for those invites either, they are retail marketing in sheep's clothing, no matter how fancy the paper they are printed on.

The Marine Mammal Center

No more accepting invitations that you have no intention of returning.  Entertaining is one of society's great pleasures.  It isn't obligatory, but if you reap, you must also sow.

The National Arbor Day Foundation where Every Card Plants a Tree

Stop helpfully asking to bring something to other people's parties, and stop asking people to bring things to yours.  Let hosts have the pleasure of entertaining you, and you simply concentrate on being the perfect guest.

Animal Protective Association of Missouri

When you entertain, do it in the place and style you can handle, with the budget you can afford.   If that means a restaurant dinner, fine.  If that means hot dogs so be it.  But do it with effort, love and pampering attention.

National Audubon Society

There is something decadently delicious about looking forward to a fun evening out that I don't have to lift a finger in helping to produce.  And there is something gratifying and addictive about being a host and taking good care of my friends.  Just as the forward pass made football a lot more fun (bring this up at your next dinner party, the guys will be impressed) these ideas will make entertaining and being entertained fun again also.  Now, someone please pass the gherkins...

National Audubon Society

National Audubon Society

Check out Cards That Give.org for holiday cards.