Festivity Level One
Your guests are chatting amiably with each other, admiring your Christmas tree ornaments, singing carols around the upright piano, sipping their drinks and nibbling hors d'oeuvres.

Festivity Level Two
Your guests are talking loudly -- sometimes to each other and sometimes to nobody at all, rearranging your Christmas tree ornaments, singing "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" around the upright piano, gulping their drinks and wolfing down hors d'oeuvres.

Festivity Level Three
Your guests are arguing violently with inanimate objects, singing "I Can't Get No satisfaction," gulping down other people's drinks, wolfing down Christmas tree ornaments and place hors d'oeuvres in the upright piano to see what happens when the little hammers strike.

Festivity Level Four
Your guests, hors d'oeuvres smeared allover their naked bodyies, are performing a ritual dance around the burning Christmas tree. The piano is missing.

You want to keep your Yuletide festivities somewhere around Level Three -- unless you rent your home and own firearms, in which case you can go to Level Four. (The best way to get to Level Three is eggnog.)

Have a Great Holiday Season and we hope you get the house cleaned up by the New Year!

(Bat Goddess & Curmudgeon, 1996)