WASHINGTON — It would have been a swell party. There was an oyster tower made from solid ice and charcuterie tables piled high in every room. The Charles Orban Champagne was flowing at this annual soiree, hosted by the French ambassador at the official residence, which is one of the prettier piles of brick in this town.

What there wasn’t: anyone recognizable from the White House. Not even Kellyanne Conway, the counselor to the president, who used to attend.

Who cares? The packs of journalists and foreign service officials who prowled the rooms of an imperial manse in search of someone who mattered, that’s who. As any of them will tell you, this holiday season, spotting someone by the punch bowl with the ability to whisper into the president’s ear has been harder than ever.

Going out in Washington is work. Parties are places for D.C. officials and members of the press corps to meet, mix and move the pieces on the chess board. (Booze helps.) Money or beauty is irrelevant. Power, and the proximity to it, is the only metric. It has always been so.