Refreshments should be served when the evening is just about two-thirds over. Every social committee wants guests to go home feeling that the evening has been a tremendous success from start to finish. The committee takes a chance as to their going home with that feeling when refreshments are the last thing on the program. Some of them finish before others, and finally a group decides that it is time to go home and they start out. Others follow them, and eventually they all drift out, but with a more or less vague and indefinite feeling of being let down at the end of a mighty fine evening.
It has proved to be far more effective to carry the fun right through refreshment time, then have a few more games, finally closing your evening with a game that brings in everyone, the kind of game that makes one have a new respect for one’s capacity for laughing. Let that game end in “Good-Night Ladies,” and your guests go home refreshed and relaxed and absolutely convinced that they never had a better time in their lives.
However, there is a pause sometimes, during refreshments, which, instead of promoting sociability, promotes a letting down of interest. It comes when some of them have finished and others have just begun their refreshments. That is a splendid time to put on informal singing. It isn’t at all necessary to get people out of their seats to sit in straight rows in front of the piano. Those who have finished may come up to the piano. Popular songs and old songs are always very effective, and a few foolish ones never fail to make the slower eaters hurry up and join the crowd. For example, let them sing “Smiles.” Then ask them to sing it omitting the word “smile.” In its place they are to smile sweetly at their neighbors. It is so easy to smile sweetly when one is convulsed with laughter!
Another good impromptu song is “John Brown’s Baby Had a Cold Upon Its Chest.” It is sung to the tune of “John Brown’s Body.” The first line is repeated twice. The fourth line is, “And they rubbed it with camphorated oil.” At first it is sung in perfectly proper fashion, but the second time the word “baby” is omitted and an imaginary baby is rocked. The third verse omits both “baby” and “cold,” a sneeze taking the place of the cold. In the next verse the same two words are omitted, and in addition “chest” is left out and pantomimed by a hearty slap on one’s chest. Next omit “rubbed,” rubbing one’s chest instead, and lastly omit “camphorated oil,” pinching one’s nose as decidedly indicative of one’s feelings toward the oil.
If the song is not allowed to drag, the last verse usually leaves your guests helpless, for although there is almost no singing left to be done, the violent pantomiming is enough to reduce them all to tears!
If a program of entertainment features has been planned this same “in-between” time has proved to be a far better time for it than the first half hour which is usually given it. If the program is made up of several numbers, ask the men to get up and change partners between numbers. A five cent fine is imposed on any man sitting with the same partner for two successive numbers.
Stunts, too, always fit in well at this time, both impromptu stunts and three or four which have needed a little preparation.
After the refreshment hour is over it is always a good plan to get all guests on their feet in some big group game, not alone for the digestive value of such an action, but for the social value as well.
The following stunts are typical of the kind of stunt which is particularly good for that “in-between time” directly after refreshments.