Ah, look at you, the perfect dinner party host. You arrange the heck out of a plate setting, pick a stellar bottle of vino, and whip up enough paella to fill a top down Chevy. But what about when you want to shift the attention from your excellent host skills to the charred flakes of your former dog? Here are some quick tips to steer the focus of your dinner party toward the only tangible thing your grieving heart cares about: the tiny shrine for your recently deceased pet’s ashes.

Get The Conversation Flowing.

Time to warm up the party! Introduce your guests to one another with easy conversation topics like what they do for work, recent vacations, and your favorite: pets! For example: “Your cat is so cute, Alice! She’s still alive, right? Well my dog isn’t and I can’t accurately describe the pain of losing Toto, who was the one true love of my life. I guess the closest thing I can describe it to is phantom limb syndrome. At least there’s a beautiful wooden box that carries her dust in this very room. Do you see the box, Alice?”

Play A Party Game.

Who doesn’t love a good party game? Charades, Never Have I Ever, and of course, I Spy. I Spy is a guessing game that starts with “I spy with my little eye…” and the players have to guess the object you spy. And you can start it off by spying ‘a striped dog collar sitting on top of a box’ or ‘a ragged dog bone on one side of the box’ or ‘the shrine containing my pet’s ashes.’ Then excuse yourself for a minute. How fun!

Make A Killer Toast

To Toto. Make a killer toast to Toto. People can’t compare to her. Not Darlene, Richard, Lisa, or even your twin sister Alice. The human race is nothing more than six billion trash monsters incapable of giving the unconditional love of a Goldendoodle. It would be going against her honor to spend this spotlight any other way.

Arrange Crudité On The Engraved Urn

No one will eat food laid upon the remains of a dead animal, but they will notice it!

Super simple, right? If you can shift a seating chart, don’t even worry about continually shifting the focus back to your pet’s ashes. It’s all you’re talking about, anyway!