Ask Alana: P.C. holiday carols, when no means yes, how to deal with rude clerks

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This week’s installment: Dealing with a holiday without presents, singing Christmas carols at a Jewish school, handling rude store clerks. If you have a question for our etiquette maven, e-mail askalana@latimes.com.

Dear Alana,
My mom says we shouldn’t do presents this year because it’s cheaper. But I like presents. I like to get them. I like to give them. It’s my favorite part of Christmas. Now that I have a job that pays me more than minimum wage, I can afford to give presents. So would it be wrong to bring presents to Christmas?
Mike Singe, Los Angeles

Mike,

This is a tough one, even if the economy wasn’t in the crapper. The “don’t get me a present” line has been around for centuries. Historians have traced it back to the days of Adam and Eve, when Eve was all “I don’t need a Valentine’s Day present” and Adam was all “Does she really mean ‘Get me a present or I will bite this apple,’ or does she mean ‘Don’t get me a present because all we have here is fruit and quite frankly, I don’t want any more fruit?’”

Whether the “no presents” line means “yes presents” in the holiday season really depends on your family situation. If Mom is saying no to presents because your brother Jebediah just got canned from the happy factory and he’ll have to move back in with the ‘rents if he spends his money on presents, I think she means No Presents. But if is she is saying No Presents because she doesn’t want you to feel obligated but really wants a miniature Millennium Falcon to add to her Ships of Star Wars collection, you should feel free to spend away. That’s something you need to suss out.

However, Lisa Cabanes, co-founder of Los Angeles party store Social Couture, says. . .

. . . that bringing a present when you’re told not to can be a big faux pas. If you give gifts and people don’t have gifts to return, they feel guilty, and people should only feel guilty during the holidays for sitting on their hineys drinking eggnog by the gallon. She advises taking charge and suggesting a family “Secret Santa” in which everyone brings a gift that costs around $20 and then you trade. That way you get the feeling of giving without cutting too deeply into Jebediah’s bank account.

That being said, Mike, it probably wouldn’t be a terrible idea to spend your new-found cash on some things you want anyway, like iTunes gift cards or DVDs or a puppet named Carlos. Keep them in your suitcase: If you misread and No Presents means Yes Presents, you can whip out the gifts and not feel like the fool. And if No Presents means No Presents, you’ll have some good gifts to give yourself as a congratulations for being one of the shrinking number of people these days who has a job that pays more than minimum wage.

Alana

Dear Alana,

Dear Leigh,

Singing Christmas tunes in a high school foyer sounds about as terrifying as waking up in the middle of your high school foyer naked and about to take the SATs, which has never happened to me but I still dream that it might. So first of all, kudos to you to be willing to sing anything at all. You’re totally a mensch.* I hope you will not find yourself naked in the foyer.

I’m going to assume that this administrator is important enough to make refusing the request impossible (if he is just the weird guy who lives in the school’s basement and cuts potatoes for lunch, I give you permission to tell him you’re not really up for the concert). If this is the case, Leigh, you’re just going to have to diplomatically suggest that you diversify the repertoire, while not being too much of a balabusta.**

Daryl Twerdahl, founder of the Los Angeles School of Etiquette and Protocol, said it’s important to be honest with the administrator that you feel uncomfortable singing only Christmas tunes. “Address the situation with candor, saying you think it is important to honor, respect and embrace the entire school community,” she says. She advises bringing in a non-Christian faculty member to help plan the concert, but I think it’s best to keep this whole matter discreet. You don’t want this to turn into a lawsuit or something.

There are, of course, some non-religious holiday tunes such as ‘Frosty the Snowman,’ ‘Jingle Bells’ and ’99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall,’ so you can certainly sing those. But you mentioned many of the students and faculty are Jewish, so throw in some tunes to make them feel a little less grinchy that it’s Christmas and all they got is this lousy holiday called Hanukkah (spoken as a longtime Hanukkah celebrator myself). Not familiar with Jewish holiday songs, Leigh? I’d like to introduce you to the Internet. There, you can find versions of some popular Hanukkah songs such as ‘Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel,’ ‘Oh Hanukkah’ and the perennial crowd pleaser ‘Wherever You Go, There’s Always Someone Jewish’ (perhaps a good lesson for said administrator to learn).

Maybe you can even some bring some dreidels and latkes (potato pancakes) to inform the administrator about all the other kinds of religious holidays being celebrated at your school. That’s when that guy in the basement cutting potatoes will come in handy.

Alana

Alana--

What has happened to the concept that you serve the customer standing in front of you before you serve the person calling on the phone? Often, I will be in a conversation at a store about an item I am interested in buying and the salesperson takes a phone call and spends five minutes taking the caller’s order or answering questions while I wait. I learned that you put callers on hold while you serve the people who took the trouble to come to your establishment.

Susan Vogel

Dear Susan,

You would think, with retail sales lagging this holiday season, store clerks would shower you with kisses and roses when you enter the store, whether you like it or not. But it sounds as if that is not the case (maybe because the prospect of being kissed by a saleswoman named Esther upon crossing the threshold would make you finally start doing your holiday shopping online).

Anyway, if a salesperson has already started tending to you and then leaves you hanging like a thread from a sweater from Old Navy, it’s well within your right to put a stop to it. Constance Hoffman, President & Founder of Social & Business Graces Inc., says “you definitely have to interrupt.” That doesn’t mean you have to be rude about it (and it’s probably better if you try to be polite) but it also doesn’t mean you should just let Esther roll over you like a steamroller while she talks to her sister about what to bring to the pot luck they’re throwing a week from Wednesday.

You could begin by saying “Excuse me. Could you put that party on hold since I’ve already started my transaction?” Hoffman said, although in the mouth of the wrong person, that could sound a bit pushy. I’d start with that, and then maybe add a little “I normally wouldn’t be so rude as to interrupt, but I’m late to pick up my grandmother for dialysis.” No one wants to delay dialysis. That way, there’s a reason you’re asking her to tend to you, and that reason isn’t just that you want to put a damper on Esther’s social life.

Sometimes, I go into a store and even though I am a rather famous etiquette columnist, I am ignored completely by store clerks. Rather than throwing a hissy fit that they aren’t fawning over me, I try to be overtly nice, and perhaps ask the store clerk if she is having a nice day. That way, I am getting her to pay attention to me, and, by being nicer than she is, giving myself the upper hand. If she still doesn’t answer, I sweetly ask if I should go to another register.

For some reason, being nice always puts sales clerks on the defensive. It works in life too: Be nicer than the enemy. They hate that.

Alana

*In Yiddish, it means good person.
**In Yiddish, it means bossy woman, but sounds a lot like ball buster, no?