The agony of the village Christmas drinks party |
Sometime in mid-October, my husband and I begin our annual deliberation: should we host a village Christmas drinks party? The conversation is almost invariably instigated by my charming husband who, mindful of all the invitations we have shamefully yet to reciprocate, feels that we ‘ought to do it this year, at least’. Almost invariably, I am the voice of dissent.
The arguments I give against are motivated by two competing – but not entirely dissimilar – emotions: vanity and concern. Vanity because I worry that my house is neither big enough nor grand enough for the sort of event I have in mind (think something along the lines of a reception at St James’s Palace, complete with hot and cold running staff and Old Masters jammed on to every wall). Concern, in this instance of the social variety, because I know from some years of experience that not everybody in the village likes each other. Or likes me, for that matter. Inviting everyone on the basis of shared geography alone is a recipe for disaster. In short, social geographies are not necessarily physical.
Villages are curious places. The former chairman of the National Trust, Simon Jenkins, may have said........