Let's say you have a 5 year-old child and you want him to celebrate his birthday with his extended family. You know that most of his cousins live about an hour away, and that one 19 month-old cousin lives close to 2 hours away. When you are choosing the date and time for the party you decide on:
a) Saturday afternoon at 2 pm, so no one coming from out of town (a.k.a. "all the guests") has to worry about work or school the next day.
b) Saturday evening at 5 pm, ditto re: the out of town guests
or c) Sunday evening, please come in the afternoon but dinner won't be until 5, no wait, 6:30
When your child's grandparents (who also live an hour away) call at 5:15 to say they are getting in the car and will be there soon, you decide to:
a) feed the children dinner, and let the adults wait to eat when the final guests arrive
b) allow your child to open the presents of the guests that are there
c) first b) followed by a)
or d) have everyone wait until the final guests arrive - in. an. hour.
When your child's uncle and aunt, parents to his 19 month-old cousin (who is writhing around on the floor from exhaustion) tell you at 7:30 pm that they really need to get going, you choose to:
a) express disappointment but understanding at their decision, and call the birthday child to come and thank them for coming to his party
b) allow the birthday child to open his present from them and thank them for coming to his party
c) ask them to stay for cake and candles, and quickly gather everyone to sing happy birthday, after which they can quietly leave as the cake is being eaten
b) refuse their attempts to leave by putting operation "cake, candles, open presents" into motion, a flurry of activity that looks efficient but ends up taking an hour and fifteen minutes.
Yeah. Me too.
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