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" You receive a really thoughtful gift from a new friend \u2014 but have nothing to give her in return. Don&amp;#039;t panic. Since she bought you a present because she wanted to, not because you &amp;quot;owed&amp;quot; each other, you can thank her warmly and leave it at that. If you decide to get her something, that&amp;#039;s fine too \u2014 but realize that reciprocating will most likely establish a yearly tradition, so decide in advance whether you really want to go there. If you do, say something like, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m sorry, I seem to be going right down to the wire this year. But I&amp;#039;ll catch up by Christmas Eve.&amp;quot; You can then pick something nice that you&amp;#039;ve already wrapped and stashed or choose something specifically for her. At your annual holiday bash, you offer your 18-year-old nephew a splash of Champagne. The next day, you find out your sister is pretty upset that you didn&amp;#039;t ask if it was okay (it wasn&amp;#039;t).  Even if you got caught up in the excitement of the festivities, that doesn&amp;#039;t let you off the hook. What exactly were you thinking? This is illegal and irresponsible. All you can do is apologize: &amp;quot;Jan, I&amp;#039;m so sorry. I should have checked with you. I truly hope that you&amp;#039;ll forgive me.&amp;quot; If she&amp;#039;s still peeved, give her some space and time. Eventually she&amp;#039;ll probably accept your apology and move on. At future fetes, remember that it is a parent&amp;#039;s choice whether or not to give wine to a child who&amp;#039;s underage.  While sending out invites for your Hanukkah party, you accidentally overlook your next-door neighbors. You later hear from a mutual friend that they were offended.  Oops! Let them know the this wasn&amp;#039;t intentional. If you truly forgot to invite them (or perhaps even if you didn&amp;#039;t), call and say, &amp;quot;Boy, we thought it was strange that you didn&amp;#039;t RSVP. It never occurred to us that we didn&amp;#039;t hear from you because we forgot to invite you! Please forgive us for being in holiday-madness mode.&amp;quot; An invitation to a more intimate gathering at your home should easily smooth over any hurt feelings.  A neighbor invites you and your children to a holiday open house \u2014 then gets huffy when she discovers that your New Year&amp;#039;s party is adults only. If your neighbor&amp;#039;s attitude is &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t attend parties where my kids aren&amp;#039;t welcome,&amp;quot; so be it. The breach of etiquette is hers, not yours, and you shouldn&amp;#039;t let her bully or guilt-trip you into making an exception for her crew. Even if it weren&amp;#039;t rude of her to try to dictate your guest list, you&amp;#039;d end up offending all the others who left their children at home. In the future, be absolutely clear when conveying the adult-only message by specifically addressing the invitation to the adults of a household (as opposed to, say, &amp;quot;Johnson Family&amp;quot;). You could also follow up with a phone call, saying, &amp;quot;We thought it would be fun for just the grown-ups to celebrate. We hope you&amp;#039;ll be able to arrange for a sitter and join us.&amp;quot;  Your mother keeps giving you holiday collectibles, but they&amp;#039;re her taste, not yours. She comes to visit and notices they aren&amp;#039;t up.  Rather than leave this to fester, address her hurt feelings immediately by saying, &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;ve been so busy, we just haven&amp;#039;t had time to uncrate all our decorations this year \u2014 including the painted reindeer you gave us. We plan on putting it out, though. Thank you for always thinking of us.&amp;quot; Next year: You may not like her holiday goodies, but to keep the family peace you should make a point to display them \u2014 even if you take them down as soon as she leaves. You accidentally leave the price tag on a gift for your mother-in-law \u2014 which is bad enough by itself. But it was also marked down to half price! You&amp;#039;re definitely eating crow \u2014 but the size of your serving depends on your mother-in-law&amp;#039;s personality. If she has a sense of humor (and if you chose a good gift), then laugh it off: &amp;quot;Well, you know what a bargain hunter I am. But I did think you&amp;#039;d love it.&amp;quot; However, if she is easily offended, or if the gift is just plain cheesy, then you have some repairing to do. Next year, or for her birthday, go out of your way to get her something special \u2014 and don&amp;#039;t forget to cut off the price tag. You hear that the boss at your new job likes to give holiday presents, so you get her one. Then you realize you&amp;#039;re the only employee who did.  If you&amp;#039;ve already presented the gift, don&amp;#039;t worry about it. But next year, dodge the charge of kissing up by doing as the Romans do: Either simply give her a nice card, or, if other staffers are willing, get together as a group to give something that&amp;#039;s nice without being too personal or expensive, such as a book or stationery.  Next: GH staffers share  &amp;quot;For three years running, two close relatives have given me gifts from the companies they work for. One is an investment banker, and he gives me T-shirts emblazoned with the company&amp;#039;s logo. His wife works in retail and buys me hats and gloves with her 40 percent discount. They don&amp;#039;t even try to hide it.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;A relative showed up for our yearly Hanukkah party with an elaborate, store-bought dessert, which she announced she&amp;#039;d brought because her family &amp;#039;didn&amp;#039;t like&amp;#039; the one I&amp;#039;d made the year before \u2014 it was too tart.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;My sister-in-law starts talking about how much she hates fatty roast beef, at the moment I&amp;#039;m serving it for Christmas dinner!&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;My aunt has always been very vocal about her opinion that my father spends too much money on frivolous things \u2014 like buying books instead of borrowing them from a library. He never seemed to pay attention, which really bothered her, so one Christmas she wrapped up a library book and gave it to him, hoping he&amp;#039;d take the hint.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;I was only six years old when it happened, but I still can&amp;#039;t believe a grown-up did this. I wrote a prayer to read aloud at Thanksgiving dinner at my aunt&amp;#039;s house. But when my aunt saw it, she said (in front of everyone) that I couldn&amp;#039;t read it because it was too long.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;My cousin manages to insult me during every holiday visit. One year she brought her own towels and bath mat. Another year she brought her own lamp for the room she stays in. And she leaves these things behind when she goes!&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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