“This is a test of breeding. Keep cool.” — Ellen Maury Slayden
“Expect three things to go wrong,” a Wise Old Gentleman once told Etiquetteer, a gentleman rich in hard-earned event planning experience. The first of the Great Feasts, Thanksgiving, takes place tomorrow*. As with anything long anticipated, everyone will come to the Feast with expectations: that certain people will be there, that the usual jokes and stories will be retold and laughed over, that familiar decorations will appear, that the food will look and taste as delicious as it always has, that everything will look and feel just as we want it and we’ll all leave feeling comforted, refreshed, and ready for a Nice Long Nap after eating too much.
And more often than not, that’s what happens. But we also need to be prepared for the unexpected: the missing ingredient, now unobtainable; the missing child, who might or might not be hiding under the bed; the broken glass, the stained tablecloth, the travel delays, the casserole that caught fire in the oven**, the political quarrel that caught fire at the table, etc. What gets us through all these obstacles to Perfect Propriety is Poise.
Poise, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is “easy self-possessed assurance of manner: gracious tact in coping or handling.” As the host or hostess of a Great Feast, it means keeping calm in the face of anything unexpected and knowing how to take charge to solve problems when necessary***. It means being able to brush off the small problems with solutions, and not to let the Perfect become the enemy of the Good. For instance, at Thanksgiving the timing of the turkey often seems to be an issue that many cooks think will make or break the timing — and the success — of the dinner. The ability to adjust plans while retaining a smile is Poise.
So many of the early etiquette writers — Etiquetteer is thinking specifically of Dorothy Draper and Lillian Eichler, but there were others — wrote about the kind of house that guests wanted to come back to, and it was always not the house where the hostess was furrowing her brow in anxious concentration, nervously thinking three steps ahead, visibly afraid of a mistake.
Yes, expectations are high this Thanksgiving, but Etiquetteer is here to tell you, whatever happens, it’s going to be OK. Your guests — so often family and friends who love you to begin with and want as much as you to help make the Great Feast truly great — are on your side and are not going to curse and fret if something goes wrong. And if they do, doesn’t that really say more about them?
So, hosts and hostesses of the Great Feasts, go forth smiling confidently! Whatever happens, your Thanksgiving will only be made more Perfectly Proper when you roll with the punches.
*Some have already occurred under the name Friendsgiving, which Etiquetteer thinks is very beautiful. Others will take place later in the weekend to accommodate travel and scheduling. But Thanksgiving Day is generally acknowledged as the Official Start of the Holiday Season.
**This actually just happened to Etiquetteer earlier this month. Were it not for a quick-thinking dinner guest who suppressed the flames with a cookie sheet, who knows what might have happened?
***Years ago at a large party Etiquetteer hosted a guest fell down a flight of stairs resulting in a bad cut. Etiquetteer, unusually clear-headed, was able to bring the guest off to the bathroom for disinfecting and bandaging.