Since I'm the new kid, and moved here from another town, mostly it was a combination of shop talk (unavoidable even at a Christmas party, it seems) and "how do you like it"/"how does this compare to (your old town) (your old paper)"/ blah blah blah sort of deal. I mean, it was nice to get to know people, but just unnerving to have all these people know me when I'd never met them (in some cases)!

The secret to small talk is finding something to comment on that will get the other person talking, so you don't have to. At least that's how I like to do it! I mean, if you greet someone with "oh, what a beautiful sweater," it launches a conversation about where she bought it, or who made it for her, and then you can just kind of follow the thread from there. Pretty soon you have either a list of good stores in the area or a chat about knitting, which leads into "do you do any crafts?", etc etc ad infinitum.