It’s that time of year
again. You’ve found yourself smack dab in the middle of the holidays. In the
midst of all the hustle and bustle, there is a chance that you might be called
upon to give a toast, especially if you are hosting a party. Perhaps this year
you’ll blow the socks off of Great Uncle Lou when you raise your glass and
offer a toast with great poise and finesse. In the words of de Cervantes,
“Preparation is half the victory.”
Of course all the
preparation in the world can’t prevent those unanticipated events best known as
bloopers. Think of the hours, months, days that go into planning the perfect
wedding. If you’ve watched those famous wedding bloopers, all it takes for one ceremony
to go amuck is a well-meaning best man stepping on the bride’s train. Next
thing you know both the bride and the minister are splashing into the pool’s blue
waters behind them.
Still, as any
professional toastmaster will tell you, it pays to keep a toast or joke in your
back pocket for those important life events. When done well, a toast is
memorable—a custom worthy of preservation. In days of old, even the humble
blacksmith was equipped to ring in the New Year with a few words:
May
your nets be always full—
your
pockets never empty.
May
your horse not cast a shoe
nor
the devil look at you
in
the coming year.
As Paul Dickson says in
his book Toasts: Over 1,500 of the Best
Toasts, Sentiments, Blessings, and Graces, “There are a number of old
things which we are well rid of—child labor, the Berlin Wall, scurvy, glass
shampoo bottles, and too many others to mention—but there are still others that
we are foolish to let slip away. Toasting is one of them.”
The custom of raising a
glass to health, prosperity, and the holidays dates back to antiquity. It may
be difficult to picture the cavemen toasting to a good hunt, but certainly the
Hebrews, Persians and Egyptians were toasters. Even Attila and his Huns “led no
less than three rounds of toasts for each course during a dinner of many
courses,” according to Dickson. We can only imagine what a New Year’s toast by
Attila would sound like: “Here’s to fast horses and conquering the small people
of the world.” Certainly, no one would
want to leave Attila off of their guest list; there might be dire consequences.
In Great Britain, some
of the first toasts to the New Year began as old wassailing songs, the
following being one of those recorded:
Here’s to
________ and his right ear,
God send our
maister a Happy New Year;
A Happy New Year
as e’er he did see—
With my
wassailing bowl I drink to thee.
While that toast may be
outdated for our tastes, even the modern toaster can feel daunted trying to
find the perfect toast for an event. One can be left tongue-tied and uninspired
at the last minute. It’s true, the modern guest can whip out a smart phone from
his back pocket, Google “Toasts” with one hand and raise a glass to cheer the
New Year, all in one stride. This is all well and good, but there is something
in the presentation that might be missing. After all, toasting is an art, a
form of human expression.
Along with Dickson’s
book, there are other helpful sources that can be found in our Minuteman
system. Toasts for Every Occasion: Warm,
Wise, and Witty Words Collected from Around the World by Jennifer Rahel
Conover contains 1,300 toasts with an extensive list of 170 categories, including
the blacksmith toast above. Some of the categories will give you a laugh
between Baldness, Drunkenness and the light topic of Hell. For the New Year, you
can’t go wrong with this one:
Here’s to the
blessings of the year,
Here’s to the
friends we hold so dear,
To peace on
earth, both far and near.
The editors of Town
& Country publish one of my favorite books. Town & Country Toasts for Every Occasion is well-organized,
easy read. Along with several holiday toasts, you can find a toast or two on
the subject of Fishing. What more could one need then a little hook, a line and
some bubbly? Maybe Attila could have learned from this well-mannered book. As
the saying goes, “teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.”
The book with the most
toasts and sayings is entitled, Toasts
& Quotes: Little Giant Encyclopedia by Sterling Innovation. Perhaps the
most helpful section of this resource is the ten pages at the beginning with
tips on presenting a speech. I find “short and sweet” to be the best words of
advice I’ve ever received when it comes to a good toast. Dag Hammarskjöld
proves this point with the following:
For all that has
been—Thanks!
For all that
shall be—Yes!
When all is said and
done, and we’ve survived the Mayan calendar and entered 2013 with gusto, it’s
likely most of us can relate best to the pragmatic toast of the beloved O—Oprah
Winfrey:
Cheers
to a New Year and another chance for us to get it right.
Even the blacksmith of
old might raise his glass to such a sentiment as that.