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Your dinner guest arrives. She holds out a small gift, beautifully wrapped. And you open it.
Ah, a pair of miniature fornicating pigs. Porcelain pigs, mind you. But yes, fornicating porcelain pigs.
"I used to collect pigs, and so, of course, for anybody who knew me well, the go-to gift was a pig. But this time, when I opened the gift, well, I was shocked. I didn't know what to say!" explains Maxine Granovsky Gluskin, president of the board of the Art Gallery of Ontario. "The guest gave it as a joke, I guess. But I would never put on my coffee table one pig mounting another."
Did she throw it away?
"Oh, no, I couldn't do that because of who gave them to me. Besides, I want to keep them because I was so taken aback," says the well-known hostess, supporter of many causes and wife of Ira Gluskin, principal of Toronto-based money managers Gluskin Sheff and Associates. "They're safely stored in a cupboard somewhere. But it serves as a lesson for giving hospitality gifts. Anything that verges on the sexual or the religious, you should just stay away from," she says with a burst of laughter.
Hospitality gifts – the preferred gender-neutral term for what was once routinely referred to as hostess gifts – are a kind of pre-thank you note, a way of showing gratitude for an invitation to someone's home for dinner. To many people, they're obligatory. Showing up empty-handed is like not calling your mother on Mother's Day.
And certainly, with the Trudeaus' invitation to the upcoming state dinner thrown by the Obamas in the White House, many expect them to bring a gift – as thanks, but also as a meaningful expression of Canada.
But ironically, for something chosen and purchased with a good intention, hospitality gifts carry a risk for offending or irritating the recipient.
Many people have rules about when and what to give.
"I only take something when it's the first invitation to someone's house," offers Kelvin Browne, executive director of the Gardiner Museum in Toronto and a popular dinner host along with his husband, Michael Allen. "I only do it once as a special way to mark the hospitality. And I will take something I have made myself – cookies I've baked, maybe – or I might bring something from the garden such as beautiful, ripe tomatoes."
He also has cautionary tales about what not to give. "I have a drawer full of little things people have brought, which I never use. Housewares. Little kitchen gadgets. Decorative objects are usually not successful. I appreciate the sentiment. But it's a bit presumptuous that the person giving it feels he or she knows your taste."
Expense should also be considered. "I have received things that are too much. In the context of the person giving it, it is understandable, but for me, it can be inadvertently intimidating because I don't know if I could give back in turn."
He never throws things out – that would seem churlish – and he's careful about not regifting. "I once went to a dinner and halfway through the night, the host and I realized that I had given him a bottle of wine that he had given me," he reports with a chuckle. "It was a special wine I couldn't easily get. We laughed about it though."
Flowers are always popular gifts. "How can you not love flowers?" offers Nicole Eaton, senator and author of At Home in Canada. But there are rules for them, too. "It can be awkward if someone arrives at the door with a bunch of flowers that aren't in a pot or already arranged. As a hostess, you're busy with your guests or with dinner, and you don't want to fuss around with finding a vase, cutting the flowers and arranging them right at that moment. It is always best to send them to the hostess with a note the day before," she instructs.
Many people say the custom has intensified in recent years. "We live in a foodie environment, and many people make an extra effort when they entertain," says Andrea Hopson, former executive at Tiffany & Co. and principal of Hopson Grace, a high-end gift and tableware boutique in Toronto.
"There's nothing casual about the way people make their decisions about how to show their appreciation. They know the host or hostess will smile and thank them, but she may be secretly thinking, 'What am I going to do with this ghastly gravy boat?' The conversations we have with customers are 'Her home is a Hollywood home so the gift has to be glamorous' or 'This couple has a rustic home I don't want to give something too fancy.'"
As Edith Wharton, novelist (The House of Mirth) and designer during la belle epoque in New York, once said, "The essence of taste is suitability." And the essence of a good gift is thoughtfulness. "A guest once brought me a hand soap with a pump," Eaton says. "And the next time I was at Pusateri's [a Toronto gourmet grocery store], I saw the same thing near the cash. And I thought, 'Oh, that person must have brought it for me at the last moment and stuck it in a gift bag.'"
Frankly, my view on hospitality gifts is the same as that for stocking stuffers. It's all very nice and sweet, but really I don't want a bunch of $20 things that I will somehow have to find a place for in my house. Every year, I clean out my kitchen cupboards, and lo and behold, in their far, dark reaches, I find dusty little jars of some odd condiment or tins of cocoa with marshmallow men who are stiff as an ironing board. I turf them. The problem, I think, is with food items that can be stored. You stick them in the cupboard and forget about them.
Far better, if you must bring something, to come with a potted plant or a food item that needs to be eaten right away – lovely macarons, for example, or chocolates, the plain, rich kind. Life never has enough dark, rich chocolate.
When my husband and I are invited to dinner, we bring a bottle of good wine. That's it. If we're invited overnight to a cottage, that's different. A thoughtful gift is in order. But generally, I am not one for arriving with shiny little gift bags. They're like bad accessories.
At Christmas, we always go to a fabulous cocktail party given by a friend of ours in her gorgeous house. And every year, in the front foyer, a little heap grows of gift bags like a snowbank in a storm. I always feel sorry for her the next day, imagining her tackling that mountain of bags filled with unnecessary and unasked-for gifts.
My mode of thanks is a post-, not a pre-, thank you. I hand deliver it, usually.
"For a lot of people, hospitality gifts are easier than sending a thank you note after the event. It's easier to bring something as a token of appreciation rather than sitting down afterward and describing what you loved about the evening," comments Eaton, who adds that she is not a carrier of little gift bags, either.
Another way she shows appreciation – aside from a thank you note – is a reciprocal dinner invitation to her house. That's what hospitality is all about if you think about it: the conviviality of other people's company in a home environment, as you welcome them into your world.
Presidential gifts
Good company? A brief history of thank-you gifts from state visits past
2002: Jean Chrétien piles it on for Bush
To mark the G8 summit in Alberta, Chrétien lards George W. Bush with a pen rest, three bottles of Canadian ice wine, a ceramic plate, a stone carving of a narwhal and a framed Kananaskis Summit declaration signed by all the G8 leaders, proving it's the thought that counts.
2004: Paul Martin keeps it real
Paul Martin plays to George W. Bush's cowboy persona and love of sports, bringing him a baseball bat and a rodeo vest embroidered with the American and Canadian flags.
2010: Stephen Harper thinks of the children
The former PM presented Sasha and Malia Obama with two Roots brown-leather backpacks embossed with script that read "Muskoka 2010 G8 Canada." On top of that, the first children got two Frisbees, a dozen CDs and two copies of Me to We: Finding Meaning in a Material World, by Free The Children founders Craig and Marc Kielburger.
2012: Harper returns
This time, Harper gifts Michelle Obama – among the most stylish First Ladies in history – with a Labradorite bead necklace and matching bracelet with maple leaf and pine-cone pendants. You haven't seen the First Lady wearing that bracelet? Neither have we.
– Dave McGinn