Reader Response, Vol. 6, Issue 16

Dear Etiquetteer: I enjoyed this most recent column, and really applaud your telling the praying family to keep a lid on it. Suggesting doing it in the car was a particularly welcome idea. When I see people praying in a restaurant (infrequently, thank Zeus) it makes me acutely uncomfortable. Dear Etiquetteer: I suspect you'll receive many a letter about this. Let me be one more to speak out about your advice on grace before meals at a restaurant. It is quite possible to say grace and not draw undue attention to one's self when dining out. Our family will sometimes hold hands silently for a moment or two in an abbreviated prayer, so sometimes instead of our unison prayer just one person will speak in gratitude for the blessing of food and the hands that prepared it. A simple grace is less conspicuous than a toast over the meal and is as good for one's soul. As I was growing up our family continued our practice of prayer no matter what the circumstances. Over vacations we'd attend services as visitors at other parishes, even at churches when the service was in other languages when we traveled abroad. It taught us that special circumstances don't change the call to need to thanks. Etiquetteer responds: Etiquetteer must respectfully disagree with your assertion that a simple grace is less conspicuous than a toast, because grace is less usual in a restaurant than a toast is. Dear Etiquetteer: I am about to have a 50th birthday bash. It is relatively informal and I do not want gifts, but I will be taking donations for [Insert Name of Worthy Charity Here] if people feel compelled to do something. How can I word such an invitation so that there should be no pressure to give a donation? Dear Birthday Girl: First, Etiquetteer would like to wish you Many Happy Returns of the Day, and congratulate you on holding your own birthday party. Let Etiquetteer assure you, handling the arrangements yourself is the only sure way that everyone you want to see actually gets invited. The best way to be sure that your guests feel no pressure to make a donation to [Insert Name of Worthy Charity Here] is not to mention it at all. Etiquetteer doesn’t want to dampen your enthusiasm for supporting this charity, but this particular custom has become so widespread that people are starting to look on party invitations as invoices. Should anyone ask you what you’d like for your birthday, then you may say that would you’d enjoy most is a donation too [Insert Name of Worthy Charity Here]. Etiquetteer will, reluctantly, allow you to put "No gifts, please" on the invitation. Etiquetteer cordially invites you to join the notify list if you would like to know as soon as new columns are posted. Join by sending e-mail to notify <at> etiquetteer.com.