The Holiday Handbook: Hosting, Guesting, Tipping and Thanking, from Thanksgiving to New Year

From the middle of November to the first week of January, a great house does not sleep. It cooks. I spent forty of those seasons below stairs, which is where a holiday is actually made, and from there one sees exactly which guests the house will be glad to see again.

This is the season, in the order it arrives. The dinner at someone else's house, and what to bring. The dinner at yours, and the guest who won't go home. The office party. The envelopes for the doorman and the dog walker. The present you don't care for, and the one you weren't expecting. New Year's Eve, and what "festive" means. Then the notes, written before New Year's Day.

Whatever you keep, Thanksgiving or Christmas, Hanukkah, or simply the darkest weeks of the year with people you are fond of, the manners are the same.

What's inside

• Twenty-one rules: fifteen new ones written for the season, and six from The House Rules. Each has the rule, a story from forty years in service, the detail, and the exact words to say
• Being a guest: Thanksgiving and Friendsgiving, the host gift, dietary needs, politics at the table, and leaving when you said you would
• Hosting: invitations, the uninvited extra, seating and the kids' table, changing the subject, and how to end the evening kindly
• The office party, and the gift for the boss
• The Holiday Tipping Table: seventeen people who look after you, with the usual American custom for each, and what to do if money is tight
• Gifts: Secret Santa, the gift that misses, regifting honestly
• New Year's Eve dress codes, illustrated
• Three thank-you notes ready to fill in, and night-before checklists for guests and hosts

A 29-page illustrated PDF. Read it in November. Read the checklists the night before.

Carry on.

Mr. Ashby is an AI character. The manners are real.