DEAR MISS MANNERS: I enjoy picking out “just the right gift” for various family members at Christmas. However, each year, several family members ask me what gift they should purchase for my children. My mother insists that I am being difficult for not providing her with a gift list.

I find these requests incredibly tacky. Am I being unreasonable for being unnerved by this practice and not participating?

GENTLE READER: Although Miss Manners believes that the meaning behind giving presents is the thought put into their selection, she is not dogmatic on the point. Being unnerved by your mother’s request for help, or calling it tacky, is too emphatic for holiday cheer.

It has been some time since your mother had a 10-year-old. Treat her request as a genuine desire for guidance on what would be meaningful, which requires providing something more than a rebuke and something less than a list of catalog numbers.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: In a recent delivery of my daily newspaper, there was a letter in rhyme from our paper deliverer, touting her services throughout the year. I received the same “poem” from our previous carrier, and most years, I sent a holiday gift (monetary) in the mail. This new carrier, however, also included a self-addressed envelope to accompany her letter.

While I am generous by nature, this was a turn-off. There’s a part of me that would like to respond in writing that I normally send a check to the carrier, but because she included an envelope, I was offended. Or should I give up, succumb to the convenience of not needing to address an envelope and simply write the check?

GENTLE READER: Do you wish to be the customer in apartment 2B who expressed gratitude for a year of service, or the grouch who (rudely) corrected another person’s manners? If, after you have chosen the former, your carrier neglects to send a thank-you letter, in rhyme or not, then next year you have Miss Manners’ permission to skip the holiday gratuity -- without an accompanying etiquette lesson or other explanation.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Here come the holidays, and with them come gifts shipped from various online retailers. Last year, a gift arrived with no indication of who sent it! How can one learn whom to thank? Casually working the conversation around to the topic of anonymous gifts arriving in the mail is burdensome, but possible. Unfortunately, the “suspect” I had in mind for last year’s mystery gift was a person I see only rarely, so that didn’t work out. This year, I want to be prepared with a strategy that (I hope!) you will supply.

GENTLE READER: In these days of online shopping, matching unmarked presents with their givers appears likely to become a permanent feature of the holidays. While Miss Manners recognizes this is less welcome than the gifts themselves, she takes consolation in the likelihood that the number of suspects is limited. It is therefore not unreasonable to expect a limited effort to identify the perpetrators.

Calling someone you have fallen out of touch with does not seem like a major imposition and may, in fact, add to your -- and their -- holiday cheer.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: When my friend’s computer was broken, she asked if she could come to my house to attend an online meeting that I, too, was attending. I said yes, and jokingly said that I believed the rule is that if you leave the house to attend an online meeting, you must wear pants. She wrote back, “Under- or outer-?”

I was loath to commit to an answer. I know that there are instances when these categories blur.

Can you explain the manner of dressing that might be expected of a guest who has come over specifically to attend an online event where attendees will be seated, and whether the online event or the visit should guide the host’s attire?

GENTLE READER: The simple answer is to dress for the meeting, as the host is merely providing an entrance to that. But also not to violate decency laws by leaving home without pants.

However, Miss Manners considers the real problem here to be that it is time to retire that joke about not wearing pants when their absence will not be visible. You tried it, and your friend tried to make a joking reply, but neither went over. We are all very tired of it.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I’ve never been part of a cache of friends and couples who have methodically gone through the marriage and parenthood thing. But where did the “gender reveal” ritual come from? And why does it exist, except to net gifts? Why do expectant parents believe it is so important to announce the sex of their baby? It used to be they were just happy to birth a healthy child.

In a typically American way, gender reveals have gotten grandiose and out of hand. One gender reveal party used a smoke machine for effect, which started a fire in California that burned tens of thousands of acres.

Why do these couples believe they are the first to ever birth babies? If anyone’s listening, Miss Manners, you should say, “Don’t be so stupid!”

You expect a lot from people. I can imagine your disappointment.

GENTLE READER: Thank you; Miss Manners would like to take a moment to weep on your sympathetic shoulder.

She would be all for inventing new ways to entertain friends, if only they weren’t all connected with the expectation of raking in presents.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I work in a pretty large building, where we are all working toward the same goal. We pass each other in the halls many times a day. Is it rude to NOT say hello (or a similar greeting) every time we see each other? I’m thinking the first time we encounter one another should be sufficient. What say you?

GENTLE READER: Ordinarily, a smile would be enough for subsequent encounters. But as Miss Manners presumes you are wearing a mask, a quick hand wave should do it.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is it right that my niece insists on “no masks” at her wedding? She even has a friend watching for masks as people enter the church!!!

GENTLE READER: Only if she has friends who are so eager to see her married that they are willing to risk their health.

Miss Manners hopes that prospective guests will be notified in advance so that they need not dress up, complete with what is now considered a conventional accessory, only to be turned away at the door.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Each year, I host my women friends at an open house holiday party in my home. Most of us are in our 60s or older, and are understandably cautious about inside gatherings these days.

I can seat five or six ladies at the proper distance inside my living room, and if we are fortunate to have nice enough weather, I can seat a slightly larger number outside. Would it be terribly tacky to go ahead with my plans, but send a sign-up sheet and have the ladies indicate the time they plan to come so that I won’t go over the limit? Or should I just give up my plans until things are hopefully better in 2021?

GENTLE READER: Although Miss Manners would be sorry to have you give up, what if your friends are all polite enough to respond immediately? Are you really going to tell some that they didn’t still make the cut?

Fortunately, there is precedent for staggering the arrival of guests at an open house, which, in normal times, might include a great many more people. For example, some invitations would say “2 to 4,” and some “4 to 6,” or even “5 to 7” if you think the early people might stick around too long.

As yours will be small parties for close friends, and they will understand the necessity for keeping the gatherings small, you could be flexible about allowing them to change time slots.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: As usual, I am receiving a few Christmas cards that are coming custom-printed with such sentiments as “Merry Christmas from The Johnson Family,” or “Happy Holidays from The Andersons,” instead of being hand-signed.

While I have always found these cards to be somewhat impersonal, I am willing to accept the notion that some people feel a custom-printed card is “classy,” and I am especially willing to excuse them if they’ve taken the time to hand-address the envelope.

The straw that breaks my back is when the cards come from people who use a computer to create address labels, which is, to me, the height of impersonal.

I am writing for your permission to feel slightly insulted when I receive a card from someone whose annual Christmas-card-sending ritual doesn’t even include picking up a pen.

GENTLE READER: Permission denied. But if you want to reverse this, Miss Manners will approve. She admires a prettily hand-addressed envelope as much as anyone, but there is nothing classy about withholding a personal touch, and the place for that is in the card itself.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)