"If you're meeting at a restaurant and the [reservation] is at 8pm, you have to be there five minutes before that, but if the party is in someone's home, I think you should be fashionably 10 minutes late," says etiquette consultant Patricia Maybury (theetiquettesuite.ie). Any earlier, and your host may still be frantically finishing their make-up or chopping up lemon slices.
The best white elephant parties I've ever attended are ones where people are often clamoring and trying to steal the hot gift of the night from one another - whether it's something super funny, genuinely good, or just downright practical that they actually need. Looking for white elephant gift ideas for an upcoming party? Below, I rounded up the best items that Apartment Therapy staffers recommend bringing to a gift exchange.