No plus-ones are allowed at this holiday work party
Dear Miss Manners: We are sending out electronic invites to our office Christmas party and would like to express that the invitation is for employees only, not guests.
How do we say that politely? Also, we do not want the invitation to be forwarded to other guests. Gentle Reader: Then hold it during office hours.
In that case, a special invitation is hardly needed, and everyone is present anyway. But once you place it during the employees’ time off, Miss Manners assures you that you will encounter legitimate resentment if you define “happy holidays” as extra hours spent away from spouses, partners and children. Dear Miss Manners: My boyfriend and I always have a debate around Christmas and birthdays. I tell him that I want gift cards, because I never know what I want and never need anything, but he insists that a gift card isn’t an acceptable gift. I’m not joking, either; gift cards are less stressful than worrying that I’ll get something I really don’t want. Gentle Reader: Why do you want to discourage the gentleman from thinking about what might please you? Even if he sometimes guesses wrong, Miss Manners would consider thoughtfulness to be a habit you would want to encourage.
All a gift card really says is, “I know where you shop, so go ahead and do your own thinking there, because only you know how to please yourself.” You can do so later by returning and exchanging. Dear Miss Manners: So, my best friend got engaged. We share mutual friends, and as we have three other friends getting married this year, we have wedding events (engagement parties, bachelorette parties, weddings) in the next two months.
My birthday is the week before one of the out-of-town weddings (at which all our friends will be in attendance). I wanted to throw a birthday party for myself (since my friends are too busy planning weddings), until my best friend with the wedding asked me if I would be interested in having a joint birthday/engagement party.
I am single and turning 25. I don’t know how to tell my friend that I want one evening about me, even though I know how selfish that sounds. All of the same friends that would be in attendance at the engagement party would be at the birthday party, but that doesn’t include the bride/groom’s family, and anyone else who is part of the wedding and would attend an engagement party.
Am I in the wrong to want to say that I want a party that is about my birthday solely? Gentle Reader: Well, let us rather say slightly childish.
Miss Manners realizes that adult birthdays have turned into major occasions for ‘’selfie’’ parties. And for that matter, weddings are also approached with the notion that the guests will serve as an audience to a biopic, rather than as witnesses and celebrants at a ceremony.
If you confess your feelings to your best friend, she might be able to indulge you by changing the date of her party. But if not, weddings take precedence over birthdays — you will have a birthday every year, whereas we hope your friend will not have multiple weddings.
Send questions to Miss Manners’ website: www.missmanners.com; to her email address: dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail: Miss Manners, Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.