(EDITORS Please be advised: The last line of this column contains language that may be offensive to some readers.)

Here are some clues that you might be overdoing the holidays:

-- The neighbors' children are going to school bleary-eyed, because the lights on your house are keeping them awake.

-- There is so much to be done in connection with your office celebrations that it is one of the most hectic work times of the year, although the service your company ordinarily performs has been all but suspended.

-- Your special wardrobe contains so many Christmas sweaters and items of jewelry with trees, bells and wreaths that you have to keep track of which you have worn where.

-- Not remembering who some of the people on your card list are and how they got there does not discourage you from sending them greetings.

-- Strangers show up at your holiday parties and open conversations with you by asking whether you can point out the host.

-- You are sending presents to a generation of relatives whom you have not seen since babyhood, and from whom you have never received acknowledgment.

-- People to whom you bring little surprise treats don't look thrilled and exclaim in pleasure; they look cornered and exclaim, "Oh, I meant to get something for you."

-- After you offer people good wishes, you find yourself having to urge them to get into the spirit of the season.

-- Your children get cranky when there are no more presents for them to open, partly because it doesn't occur to them to go on to the next stage of playing with what they received, but mostly because they are just plain exhausted from the task.

-- You press food on people after they claim to be sated by telling them how much work you put into making it.

-- You quiz people about their ancestry for the purpose of celebrating their particular holidays, even ones they don't celebrate themselves.

-- You end up being annoyed at everyone you were trying to please.

Normally, Miss Manners is an enthusiastic supporter of the cheerful and the festive, with little patience for those who claim that they find merriment depressing. She believes that traditions bind people together and that it is divisive, if not cruel, to scorn family observances. Her admiration for those who plan their holidays for others' pleasure, and not just their own, is boundless.

But she worries about people who, bless their hearts, get so into the holiday spirit that they go around spreading fatigue and obligation and, ultimately, their own disappointment that others fail to keep up with them.

They would do well to remember that there can be too much of a good thing:

-- An hour of generalized fellowship in an office is a delightful break, but the additional workload or assessment to support serious celebrations is a burden that should not be imposed.

-- There is no pleasure in receiving cards or presents from people one can't place, and no point in sending presents into a void from which there is no response.

-- Unexpected treats and presents should be on so modest a scale as not to leave the recipient with a surprise social debt.

-- Giving is blessed, but force-feeding people presents or food beyond what they can handle is not.

-- Assuming that everyone celebrates Christmas may be insensitive, but so is assuming that everyone has a Christmas-equivalent and wants help sharing it.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: A couple of years ago, my wife and I attended the wedding of two people who had been friends of ours for years. One year ago, the woman left the man for another man. We heard all about it from the man but heard nothing from the woman as we live in separate towns.

We received a little Christmas package from the woman who, in her note, made no reference to her infidelity -- an act that considerably affected all who were friends of the pair.

I felt instinctively the need to thank her for the gift and card, but I didn't feel as if I should ignore the issue of her leaving her husband. In the end, I wrote a thank-you note and told her what I thought of the situation -- not in excoriating terms but in bluntly honest ones. In your opinion, was this boorish?

GENTLE READER: Yes. Had you wished to register your disapproval you could have written her a dry letter of thanks; had you wished to register extreme disapproval, you could have returned the present. Miss Manners is afraid that "Thanks, slut," is not a proper communication.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am happily married and get along very well with my husband's family, even though our backgrounds are very different. My parents live in a mansion, while his parents live in a converted mobile home.

When I visit my in-laws, I'm happy to sleep on the living room floor with my husband, perhaps even sharing the room with one or two other family members. This Christmas, though, my in-laws will be hosting a family reunion, in which my husband and I are expected to share the living room with more than a dozen people, some of whom even my husband doesn't know.

Should I grit my teeth, or is there a way to ask my beloved in-laws if they would mind if we stayed at a hotel instead? The only acceptable excuse I have been able to think of is telling them we were trying to conceive a child and that was my fertile time, but as much as I dread camping out with strangers, I do not think that is a good reason to start a family.

GENTLE READER: Nor to startle the one you already have.

Miss Manners is flabbergasted that the only excuse you can think of would provide everyone with a vivid, if misleading, picture of how you and your husband plan to spend the night. Did it not occur to you to say, "I'm afraid I've been having trouble sleeping"?

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I work in the airline industry and live in a large condominium. Unfortunately, most of my neighbors know what I do for a living since they see me in my uniform coming and going to work, and everybody, invariably, will ask me questions pertaining to my line of work anytime they see me in the elevator, at the pool, etc.

I understand my work draws curiosity, but answering the same questions over and over to the same people for over five years now is really driving me nuts! They ask me if it's my day off or when am I going on a trip again?

Why would that matter to a stranger anyway? Why would I want to discuss my company business with strangers? Please tell me what would be a good answer to these irritating questions so they won't ask me again?

GENTLE READER: Airport security must be getting to you, if you cannot distinguish between an idle question and an interrogation.

The answer to your question of why your schedule would matter to strangers is that it doesn't. They are just trying to be pleasant, and since they travel less frequently and love to talk about where they go, plan to go and have been, they do not realize you do not.

Miss Manners does not mean to suggest that you therefore need to tell them. All you are required to do, since these are your neighbors with whom you presumably want to be on good terms, is to offer a return pleasantry. Almost anything vague would do if you offer it cheerfully: "Just glad to be home" or "Hither and yon," or "Depends on the scheduling," or "I'll know when I get there."

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am a single man of 39, and I was seated on a bench, indoors at the local pharmacy, waiting the (seemingly interminable) 40 minutes for the pharmacist to fill my orders.

A darling little girl of about 3 years old, in a frilly pink dress, was seated to my right. I looked to the head of the line (about 15 feet away) at the pharmacist's checkout counter and saw a young woman whom I took to be the child's mother.

This little girl was anxious to show off her new shoes and backpack, and she initiated a conversation with me. I smiled indulgently and warmly feigned interest in what she was showing me.

The woman at the counter spun around to see what was going on. So, in order to allay her fears that I might be a kidnapper or pedophile or something equally awful and topical, I smiled reassuringly at the woman and doubled the volume of my voice so that she might hear the innocuous content of my conversation.

The little girl was thrilled with my attention to her -- so much so that she, unbidden, literally climbed over the padded gray armrest to my right and sat in my lap! She continued inventorying to me her new pink and silver school supplies, as I kindly cooed interest over them, trying to see what magic they obviously held for her. The innocent forwardness of the child didn't bother me in the least; I am a substitute teacher, adore children and am good with them.

But when the mother saw the child in my arms, her eyes widened, she flew over, snatched the bewildered child from my lap and delivered me the most hateful and accusatory facial expression imaginable.

If this weren't dismaying enough, the pharmacy checkout lady -- when she finally handed me my meds -- narrowed her eyes to slits, and icily dismissed me.

Miss Manners, just exactly what was I guilty of here? Has American society gotten this sick, distrustful and alienated? And we live in a small Texas town, no less! How could I have handled the situation better?

GENTLE READER: Miss Manners understands that she is expected to do a number about the outrageous implied insult of a mother's objecting to finding her daughter sitting on a stranger's lap, and then to bemoan the state of a society that produces such vile suspicions.

But the fact is that society is better off acknowledging the dangers to children that, unfortunately, have always existed. If you think that children ought to be kept charmingly innocent in their trust of strangers and that adult strangers ought to know that they can trust you to cuddle with their children, there is no difference in maturity between you and the little girl.

If, however, you are a teacher who has the interests of children at heart, you should have begun the lesson this child's mother should have taught her. You should have firmly placed her back in her chair, saying in a matter-of-fact tone, "Now you sit there, and I'll sit here. I can see your pretty things just as well, and this way, you can stay within sight of your mother, which I'm sure she told you to do."

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am writing to inquire about your feelings on adults feeding adults in public places, such as restaurants. I have seen this occur while dining out.

GENTLE READER: You cannot imagine how many feelings Miss Manners spares herself from entertaining by the simple device of not peering at other diners in public places.

Similarly, she is sparing herself from worry that you might be referring to the perfectly polite practice of helping someone who has physical difficulties, and not just complaining about the silly practice of adults thrusting forks at one another while saying, "Here, try this."

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