Newport Manners & Etiquette: Thanksgiving Guest Etiquette
Tuesday, November 22, 2016
Thanksgiving guest etiquette
Q. What should we know about being perfect guests? My fiancée and I are spending the long Thanksgiving weekend as guests of my aunt and uncle. It is a mini-family reunion with my parents, and brother and sister-in-law, who have a toddler. AJ, Middletown, RI
A. Never arrive empty handed, and I don't mean that pushing your wheeled garment bag will do. Bring a small hostess gift. Either really good chocolates or bottle of wine, or flowers. If you know they will read it, bring a current best-selling thriller. Be mindful of setting up your technology. Help out often. Be tidy and always thankful.
In a nut shell:
- Be in the present and I not texting your office or dog-sitter every half hour. Be in the here and now.
- Share your travel plans ahead of time. Communicate delays and changes along the way. That means clarifying exactly who you'll be arriving with, how you'll be getting there, and the time of your arrival. Include the time and day of your departure.
Will you be needing directions? Renting a car at the airport? Arriving in an Uber or do you need the name of the local cab company? Do you have to be picked up at the train station? Running behind schedule, let your host know by phoning her to tell her not to wait dinner for your arrival.
- Bring up any special needs ahead of time so your host is not blindsided. Such as asking if you can bring your dog, because your dog sitter isn't available. Or announcing that your child is allergic to tree nuts.
- Special dietary needs can be a bummer for your host, but it doesn't have to be if you can be either silent or flexible about your issues.
- Be helpful, pitch in. Even if it is to take out the garbage.
- Offer to lay the logs for the fire, open the wine bottles, sweep the dusting of snow off the porch, go out to buy ice or ice-cream.
- Be a self-sustaining guest by not asking for the WiFi info while your hostess is whipping up the pumpkin pie to put in the oven. Ask all your tech questions during a down time, such as where to charge your phone. Keep all your possessions in one place, and not strewn out all over the house; that includes your tech gear and puffer jacket. Don't charge your phone in the kitchen, but in your room; away from a child's reach.
- When answering texts, emails and phone calls, find a quiet place where you won't be in the way and condense your tech time into small doses.
- Bring your own charger, but don't charge your phone in heavily trafficked areas such as the kitchen, dinning room, front hall, bathroom.
- Share WiFi, don't hog it.
- Never leave the house without asking, "Is there anything I can pick up for you?"
- Volunteer (I can't emphasis this enough.) to walk the dog, play checkers or read to the child, load the dishwasher. Be useful. You're visiting not to be waited on, you're there to participate.
- Before going off to bed the final night of your visit, ask your host what you should do about your towels and bed linens: fold them and leave them at the foot of your bed in the morning or take all used linens to the laundry room? Empty your wastepaper basket.
- When you get home, within two weeks follow up with a thank-you note giving a recap of the highlights of your visit.
My point is this. If you wish to be invited again, be a good guest and follow the above.
Breastfeeding at the Thanksgiving table
Q. My husband doesn't approve of my daughter-in-law breastfeeding in public, which to him means in front of the family. My husband is the step-grandfather of the baby. Specifically he says he doesn't want her breastfeeding at the Thanksgiving dinner table. We love her and the first grandchild, but I have to keep peace in the family. How should I handle this? JP, Arden, NY
A. Nip it in the bud. Tell your son ahead of time that he needs to bring a nice cover up for the baby when his child is breastfeeding. Explain how his step-father feels. Say it makes him uncomfortable, queasy, because it is not something he is used to seeing. And that, maybe, over time he will come to ignore his apprehension when she feeds her child in front him. But for now, Thanksgiving, she needs to cover the baby while feeding. Offer to provide her with a baby guilt or muslin swaddle or muslin blanket (at adenandanais.com) to drape over the baby's head and the mother's breast. Otherwise you should tell your son that she should go into another room while the baby is nursing, since it is his step-father's home as well as yours. Even though the nursing mother is the guest.
Gluten-free guests
Q. My boyfriend and I are going to his parents' for Thanksgiving. I'm pregnant with their grandchild and I'm gluten-free. They appear to like me, but I can feel that they are distraught over our "situation." We've made it clear that we will be getting married eventually. Just not now, as I'm in grad school while becoming a first time mom, and have enough going on without planning and paying for a conventional wedding. We've been to their home before for dinner and we explained that I am on a gluten-free diet. And yet his mother insists that it is silly and that I can "splurge" and go off my gluten-free diet when she makes dinner. What do I do? Anonymous, Cambridge, MA
A. Bring a dish to share that is gluten-free. A pumpkin pie with a gluten-free graham cracker crust, or how about a gluten-free deep dish chocolate bourbon pecan pie! Snack ahead of time. Put a protein bar in your handbag.
Eat what you can eat of her delicious meal complimenting everything.
Don't expect your host to accommodate your diet. Hosts are not required to go out of their way to please a single guest, especially at a busy Thanksgiving dinner.
Communicating with triplets
Q. As the parents of triplets we've always made a great effort to treat them equally. Not easy. Especially now that they're in college it is difficult to communicate. There are some things you don't want to text because you want to be able to give them emotional support in person.
My wife, their mother, was recently diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia. We had planned to tell the triplets when they were home over Thanksgiving weekend, on that Friday after the feast. Now one of them cannot come because she has to work, and she lives on the other coast. What would you do? We wanted to tell all three the bad news at the same time but now that is not possible. Jason, Seattle
A. Quickly shoot off an email addressed to all three. You want to send it immediately so that they have time to call you in advance of their arrival to ask questions. It will give you a little one-on-one time to chat before two of them arrive. Of course, the one who is not able to come home for the holiday will feel the worst because she's not there, so follow up with subsequent updates. Continue the updates addressed to all three. Consider the time zones where the triplets live so that two of them don't receive your update while the other is still asleep.
Didi Lorillard researches etiquette at NewportManners.
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