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This is about whether or when you don’t need to bring a hostess gift.

Do we bring a gift to a potluck/BYO New Year’s Eve Party? It is a potluck dinner and as instructed, I’m bringing a lobster mac-and-cheese casserole and my husband, two bottles of Prosecco. But do we still need to bring a hostess gift?

–Anonymous, Narragansett, RI

No, you do not have to take a token hostess gift to a pot luck dinner.

Your host has asked you for what she wants from you and that is what she is expecting. It sounds as though you and your husband are giving the host what she wants, a lobster mac-and-cheese and two bottles of Prosecco.

An invitation is a social bid. You were invited to a pot luck dinner and the appropriate reciprocity is a return bid in a return invitation. However the invitation doesn’t necessarily have to be for a pot luck or BYO. It could be a brunch, cookout, shrimp boil, holiday party, cocktail party, etc.

However, in order to sustain the relationship and be invited back again, you would send a thank-you note, if the invitation was delivered by mail; a thank-you email, if it was an evite; a thank-you text, if the invite was texted.

~Didi