Princess Lessons

“Have you ever heard of the Golden Rule?” I asked the little girls sitting around me on the floor.

“Do unto others like you want them to do to you,” my daughters piped up, a couple of their cousins chiming in with them at the end.

“Mrs. Knoles made us learn that in second grade,” Kami added, Krissi nodding her head in agreement. They had both been blessed to have the same teacher, and she had been a good one.

“What does that mean?” I asked them.

“It means if you want someone to be nice to you, you should be nice to them,” Kami's best friend, Jessica, quickly explained.

“Like, if you don't like it when your big brother teases you, you shouldn't tease your little brother, either,” added Jodi, Jessica's little sister.

“Right,” I agreed, happy they understood the concept. “Well, manners are really all about keeping the Golden Rule. They are just things we do to be nice and treat other people the way we want to be treated.”

It was Wednesday morning, the third day of Princess Lessons, and I was teaching the girls how to have good manners.

It all started when my sister, Julie,came to stay with us for a week before she and her family moved to Utah. Being the middle of the summer, it seemed a good time to have all the cousins spend some time together. I had Grandma Day once a week, anyway, so I called the rest of the family and invited all the girls, plus Kami and Krissi invited their best friends, and before you know it we had twelve to fifteen little girls at our house. Somewhere I got the idea they would enjoy playing princesses, so we began princess lessons.

On Monday we had learned how to talk like a lady and they practiced giving each other compliments after I taught them how to answer the phone politely and take messages.  Then we watched Princess Diaries and My Fair Lady, 

On Tuesday we worked on looking like a princess. I got out all our costumes, mom had a trunk full of dress up clothes and I had hats and gowns and costumes which I'd collected over the years. The girls dressed up in all their finery, then we practiced putting on make up and fixing their hair, and took pictures.

This day we were learning table manners and how to eat like a princess, in preparation for Thursday, when we had planned a Princess Ball.

“If you invited people to come to your house for dinner, and put out your nicest dishes and tablecloth and stuff, would you want them to make a mess of your stuff?” I asked the girls.

“No,” they replied.

“What would happen if everyone wanted the mashed potatoes at the same time, and they all tried to grab the bowl?”

“It would spill and get all over the table.”

“That's why we don't just reach across to get stuff,” I explained. “When you want something, you ask for it to be passed it to you. And don't forget to say the magic words.”

“Please and Thank You,” the girls shouted.

“Right!” I praised them. “Now, when we start a meal, we always pass the food the same direction, to the right. That way it doesn't get mixed up and one person ends up with everything at his place.”

The little girls nodded their heads in understanding, so I asked them another question.

“What about eating? How would you like it if your brother took a big bite of something, then turned to you and started talking and you had to see his chewed up food in his mouth, dripping out?”

“Yuck!” they exclaimed. “My brothers always do that,” Rebecca added, and some of the other girls nodded.

“What should you do so no one has to see your chewed up food?”

“Don't talk with your mouth full,” they answered promptly.

“And only take little bites,” one of the older girls added self-righteously, “so you can chew it up quickly and swallow it.”

“Good! The truth is, all of the good manners and rules we have boil down to this one thing, the Golden Rule. They have all been made so that we can treat each other nicely, the way we want to be treated.”

We had fun that day, learning how to set the table properly: why the knife is always placed with the cutting edge toward the plate; how we use our silverware from the outside in; how each used utensil is removed from the table with the dirty dish so soiled silverware isn't put down on the tablecloth; and how to watch your hostess and follow her example. Then we had a tea party so we could practice, and the girls used their manners perfectly.

The following day they helped me decorate for the ball. After everything was ready they went upstairs and decorated themselves in their pretty costumes, their fancy hairdo's, and their makeup. By the time their moms and dads came for dinner that night they were ready. I was so proud of them, using their best manners and eating politely, but the most fun of all was after dinner was over. Then we put on some music and they danced. If only there had been more boy cousins, especially older ones, for them to dance with. They would have loved having some princes to show off for, but they still enjoyed dancing with their dads and each other, and we sure had a good time.