How to Make a New Year's Eve Toast

Picture the following dilemma: You've managed to pack all your friends and relatives into your tiny apartment for New Year's Eve, the ball has just dropped on TV, all available toots have been tooted, hands shaken and backs slapped, and suddenly the assembled company lapses into silence and turns to you expectantly. Do they expect you to do a little dance? Tell a dirty joke? No, they're waiting for your New Year's Eve toast. Read the following tips carefully, lest you start everyone's year on a sour note.

Instructions

1. Keep it short. A New Year's Eve toast is a polite formality, not an excuse to step into Fidel Castro's shoes and deliver a four-hour oration. Whatever toast you come up with, make it brief, and don't feel the need to personally address everyone in the room. (A sure sign your toast has gone on too long: guests sighing ostentatiously, gathering up their coats and slipping out the door while your glass is still raised.)

2. Don't offend anyone. If one of your guests recently lost her job and is convinced she'll be living in a Dumpster by spring, it's not a good idea to toast everyone's "continued prosperity." Similarly, if your best friend's wife just filed for divorce, avoid any toasts that include the phrases "spending the holiday with loved ones" or "when you come right down to it, what can be more important than family?"

3. Use humor sparingly. As per the above, any joke you make during your New Year's Eve toast will be filtered through your guests' total inebriation, regrets about the past year and fears over the year to come, which is not a good recipe for uproarious laughter. On the other hand, they may just as well forget what you've said five minutes after you've said it, so here's the opportunity to use that "I'd rather have a free bottle in front of me than a prefrontal lobotomy!" line you've always been aching to try.

4. Rehearse. Speaking of jokes, the only thing more painful than a badly fumbled punch line is an even more badly botched New Year's toast. If necessary, write what you're going to say beforehand, either on a piece of paper or your forearm. This is another good reason to keep your toast short and sweet. Who can possibly mess up, "Here's to a healthy and happy New Year for everyone?"

5. If all else fails, improvise. If, despite the above advice, your toast isn't going well, you can always fall back on the classics, such as Luca Brazzi's line from "The Godfather": "Don Corleone, I am honored and grateful that you have invited me to your home on the wedding day of your daughter. And may their first child be a masculine child!"