Parties by Dave Barry

  Festivity Level 1: Your guests are chatting amiably with each other,
admiring your Christmas-tree ornaments, singing carols around the
upright piano, sipping at their drinks and nibbling hors d'oeuvres.

  Festivity Level 2: Your guests are talking loudly -- sometimes to
each other, and sometimes to nobody at all, rearranging your
Christmas-tree ornaments, singing "I Gotta Be Me" around the upright
piano, gulping their drinks and wolfing down hors d'oeuvres.

  Festivity Level 3: Your guests are arguing violently with inanimate
objects, singing "I can't get no satisfaction," gulping down other
peoples' drinks, wolfing down Christmas tree ornaments and placing
hors d'oeuvres in the upright piano to see what happens when the
little hammers strike.

  Festivity Level 4: Your guests, hors d'oeuvres smeared all over
their naked bodies are performing a ritual dance around the burning
Christmas tree.  The piano is missing.

  You want to keep your party somewhere around level 3, unless you
rent your home and own Firearms, in which case you can go to level 4.
The best way to get to level 3 is egg-nog.