NAPKIN ETIQUETTE:
Ordinarily, as soon as you are seated you put your napkin on your lap. At a formal dinner, however, you wiat for your hostess to put hers on her lap first. It does not matter how you do it, so long as you do not give it a violent shake to open it up. You take it from the table, place it on your lap (not under your chin SC) If it is large enough, you may tuck a corner under you to keep it from sliding off, or if it is not, you arrange it as safely as you can and unfold it as much as necessary with both hands.
No one should ever tuck a napkin into one's collar, belt or between buttons of one's shirt.
When using a napkin avoid wiping your mouth as if with a washcloth. Blotting or patting the lips is much more attractive.
If you leave the table during the meal, either leave the napkin on the left side of your plate (soiled part turned under, out-of-sight) or on your chair so others need not see it.
When the meal is finished, put the napkin on the left side of your place, or if the plates have been removed, in the center. It should not be refolded, nor should it be crumpled up; rather it is laid on the table in loose folds so that it does not spread itself out. At a dinner party the hostess lays her napkin on the table as a signal that the meal is over, and the guests then lay their napkins on the table--not before. Napkins are never reinserted into napkin rings, unless at home.
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