Ah, family functions. What aren't they great for? Whenever I'm faced with a situation like that, I find that it's normally a good compromise to bring a book along. It allows you to talk and socialize when necessary, but also get something done when nothing is going on.
And if you wouldn't terribly mind, would you mind moving this conversation to MSN? It's all too easy forget to refresh KHI sometimes, especially when I'm trying to multitask as much as I am. lol what, you've disappeared. That solves that problem, I suppose.