Christmas party food etiquette: From double dipping to canape hogging

It isn't just the people attending parties who have a monopoly on irritating behaviour. Hosts are often just as guilty.

Crunch time: there are many rules that govern social interactions around food and the first is, never double-dip (Alamy)

There is a certain cycle that most people in Britain go through when it comes to Christmas parties. When you are young you go to lots of parties; mostly as addendum to your parents, who try to chat while making sure you don't shove a Twiglet up your nose or drink that schooner of sherry negligently placed close to your high chair.

Then come your teens, when the parties tail off, your parents lacking the moral resources to force you to go to Great Aunt Jean's bungalow for a Christmas Eve tipple and a game of bingo. Instead, you go down the pub with your mates. But then time intervenes yet again and you find yourself in your twenties with the beginnings of a career and once more a million invitations to Christmas “dos” flood your diary.

So it is that I find myself at a party making polite conversation with a friend of a friend, drinking Blossom Hill. I don't mind the wine though, even if it is lukewarm. What is really doing my head in is that the friend of a friend (a FOF, if you like) keeps picking up Doritos, dipping them into a bowl of salsa biting half off and then, whoosh, down once more into the bowl of salsa. He has the regularity of a grandfather clock – dip, bite, dip and repeat.

There are many rules that govern social interactions which involve food and the first of them is, never ever double-dip. Call me pernickety, call me prissy or whatever but I like my guac without a side of slobber, thank you very much. It is the most basic courtesy, up there with not belching at the dinner table or pinching the hostess's bum.

It is by no means the only bit of egregious party behaviour you see at this time of year. If you go to the sort of professional parties where people serve canapés, you will know that there is a certain type of person to be avoided at all costs.

You will notice him standing right by the kitchen, his eyes twitching, ready to corner the waiter or waitress and extract 48 canapés from them with the help of a napkin which looks like it came from home. “Chill out, pal!” I long to say, “There are only so many bits of cheese in puff pastry a man can eat”, though naturally I just glower and go hungry.

It isn't just the people attending parties who have a monopoly on irritating behaviour. Hosts are often just as guilty. I mean, yes, you might want everyone to bugger off out of your home but is it really necessary to start cleaning up around us all? The sight of a Dyson is never a good note on which to end a party.

Still, that is small beer when compared with taking the bottle of spirits you arrived with when you toddle off home. There is a special part of hell reserved for people who do that. It is a uniquely terrifying place featuring a rotund man endlessly double-dipping his cheese Doritos, forever and ever. Merry bloody Christmas.