Filling the subsequent void, however, is a terrible confusion and anxiety about what to wear when you lift your head from your iThings and have a few friends over for Boxing Day. Do you strive for kitchen practicality in jeans and a sweater, only to welcome guests in sparkly cocktail frocks? Do you over-accessorize with clanking, assertive jewelry that reminds everyone who’s in charge? Do you say the heck with it and tie one on — an apron, that is?

Jamee Gregory, a Park Avenue socialite who also entertains frequently in the Hamptons, is the author of the sumptuous and somewhat upsetting coffee-table book “New York Parties: Private Views” (Rizzoli), which has chapter titles like “Lobster Rolls on the Terrace” and “St. Tropez Cocktails” — airy spreads conjured with obvious professional help. (“How to produce instant lunch for 12? Call your favorite restaurant, as Tory does” is a typical sentence.) “I think the nice part of being a hostess is that you get to be the boss and set the tone,” said Ms. Gregory, noting a general trend away from the ball skirts of the Malcolm Forbes years toward one of more ambiguously “festive” attire. Still, “I think you can take it too far.” She reminisced about one chatelaine whose outfit matched her tablecloth. “It was all super-coordinated to her décor; everything was kind of turquoise and seafoamy — it was bad.” But bold! Another moonlighting decorator, upon completing the makeover of a West Village apartment once rented by Eleanor Roosevelt, had a seamstress whip up a shift dress from the fabric used to slipcover the couch and then wore it to the housewarming — very Scarlett O’Hara.

Image An Oscar de la Renta evening caftan from 1963. Credit... Associated Press

Back in the 21st century, Gabrielle Finley, a Le Cordon Bleu graduate, the wife of the College Humor founder Josh Abramson and a practiced organizer of dinner parties (featuring items like fish en papillotte), said she always wears a dress and heels. “But something lightweight, because I’m searing things, and it’s hot.” Ms. Finley said. “And I guess dark, so I don’t splatter something on myself. Sometimes I’ll put on a cute apron from Anthropologie — not too culinary-looking.” Others go for four-burners-blazing cred with bandannas, clogs and — in the case of one friend of Ms. Finley’s — a name-embroidered chef’s jacket. Even though she didn’t go to cooking school.

On the other end of the ladle is Irene Neuwirth, a jewelry designer and resident of Los Angeles, known for fabulous feasts made while wearing frocks by Matthew Williamson and Megan Park in reckless pastels. Ms. Neuwirth breezily refuted the death of the hostess gown. “Oh, I’m always wearing long, probably more formal dresses,” she said. “I bought this really gorgeous Oscar de la Renta eyelet, long in back and short in the front — it’s white.”