<iframe src="//www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-K3L4M3" height="0" width="0" style="display:none;visibility:hidden">

Dear Mary

Dear Mary: We have new friends but can’t bear to eat in their filthy kitchen. What to do?

19 January 2019

9:00 AM

19 January 2019

9:00 AM

Q. I note that (Dear Mary, 12 January) you advised your correspondent, resentful of Christmas expenditure, to offer instead ‘mutual experience gifts such as lunches and massages’. I am in my seventh decade and realised this year that, like most friends and family, I too have reached ‘peak stuff’. I propose that next year I will invite people to give me the name of their favourite charity and then make a donation to that charity.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Black Friday sale

Subscribe today and get 10 weeks of The Spectator Australia for just $1

  • Unlimited access to spectator.com.au and app
  • The weekly edition on the Spectator Australia app
  • Spectator podcasts and newsletters
  • Full access to spectator.co.uk
Or

Unlock this article

REGISTER

You might disagree with half of it, but you’ll enjoy reading all of it. Try your first month for free, then just $2 a week for the remainder of your first year.


Comments

Black Friday sale

Subscribe today and get 10 weeks of The Spectator Australia for just $1

Already a subscriber? Log in

Close