Unless you are Santa Claus, you are faced with some tough haberdashery decisions when forced to take a ride on the Christmas Season Social Circuit.

Santa has it made. He’s got one suit.

Here’s a guy who never has to worry about whether or not his bow tie is crooked. No matter what clothing etiquette the holiday occasion calls for, Santa Claus is literally covered.

Red suit with white trim. Black belt and boots. Red hat with white trim and white fuzzy ball. He carries the big bag if he wants to accessorize. Standard gear, worldwide, for the past several hundred years, give or take.

That is why he’s so jolly all the time; all he has to do is keep the one outfit fairly clean and he’s set.

Not so with non-Santas. For you and me, the holiday dress-code road is ice-patched, long and winding, the woods dark and deep.

The Situation: A holiday party looms, and the invitation reads “gala.” You panic, because you thought Gala was a girl’s name.

Is a “gala” different from a “festive occasion”? Is a gala automatically a “black-tie affair”? Or is it just a dressed-up word meaning “a party”?

No clue.

Say a guy wants to barbecue chicken in December in his backyard. Can he invite people and call it a gala? Can he have a gala if he’s barbecuing alone? Can barbecue sauce and a gala co-exist, or does one automatically cancel the other?

Can you wear a baseball cap to a gala? If you can’t, why? If you can and the party is after 5 p.m., is a black cap preferable?

Probably not. But then, what about this:

If a bunch of iron workers decide to have their Christmas party immediately after work one Friday and if refreshments come straight out of ice chests sitting in the back of their dusty pickups, and if the guy who puts on a clean T-shirt is considered overdressed, are you going to tell them their party is not a gala if that’s what they want to call it?

I think not.

Even reindeer have it better than we do. They can show up at a gala stark naked, with maybe a bell or two on, and nobody says squat.

For a moment, let’s define gala as “a big festive party involving finger foods and people with ties on and dresses they wear only three times a year, max.” Fine. Now, when does it stop being a “gala” and start becoming a “bunch of guys standing around talking and wanting to get out of their rented shoes”?

It’s enough to make you long for Groundhog Day.

And is it pronounced gay-la, gah-la, or gal-a? The dictionary has it all three ways.

See what we’re saying? It’s hard to dress for something you don’t even know how to pronounce.

The bottom line is “gala” is a mysterious word and thing. So there’s no mystery about what many of us need going into this Christmas season.

A clean and pressed red suit.

And a fashion clue.

Contact Teddy at teddy@latech.edu