Holiday Party Fun!....

[Melxb]

....what's your Holiday/Christmas party gonna be like this year? We're having an ultra-formal party with lots of speeches, lots of bland hotel food (it will be held at a local luxury hotel) and lots of booze (after business hours of course ). Actually, I think it'll be fun.

What about everyone else?

[Cedophile]

I think I'll be doing a couple of different parties in December. There'll be a Christmas party at a hotel that my friend works at, so I'm going there. Then there's another party that my coworker's holding at a bar & grill that I may be going to.

[powerboy]

Not having one at work. Because it will cost money

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

We probably aren't going to have one. We haven't had one for about 4 years now.

Last year, the managers promised us a big party after our remodel and Christmas, but that didn't happen.

We used to have our parties at a local banquet hall, with a magician and his ventriloquist wife as the entertainment. Quite cornball but it sure beat working on a Saturday night.

[Kiwi]

We had ours last night, they paid for our dinner (preset menu) and our first drink.

We had it at the towns nicest resturant (apprently)...it was cowboy themed

In a private room, with our own barstaff and fireplace...I was the only one who tipped the poor thing ($3 for 3 drinks)

It was fun, we have a small staff, but we played a few games and listened to the director make a quick speech, she thanked the new staff.

The pain in the neck co-worker mentioned 8 times (party was 3 hours) that she never has any shifts....it made for some uncomfortable sliences ...they know she wants more...and still havent given her any. But she wont take the hint!

The food was ok...nothing outstanding but it wasnt bad! But it was nice to get to socialise outside work, and I tried a cosmopoltian for the first time and then had 3 more !!!

They are my new favourite drink now! Woohoo christmas party!

[iradney]

we're having our holiday party in 2 weeks. think it's going to be semi-formal, but i'm one of the MC's! (really nervous, i've never MC'd before). We nearly boycotted it because the big boss wanted to make it a cash bar, but when he found out that there would be no party, he graciously agreed to have it open bar.
i know. we're spoilt!

[AFpheonix]

We don't have parties, although we did draw secret santa names....

[Rapscallion]

We tend to take over a nearby function room and infest it for a night. Previous highlights include people bent over in a shrubbery while vomiting copiously, chaps running into the room naked with toilet paper streaming from their buttocks, and smokers doing their best to raise greenhouse gas emissions.

Not much different from our regular crew's drinking binges, but...

Oh yes, the post mortem afterwards includes people ending up going home with other people, as well as embarrassed glances for the next few weeks. I suspect you'd already guessed that, though.

Rapscallion

[iradney]

i remember a staff party from a previous job of mine. The company took us away for an overnight team building exercise (camping and such like).
However, that night, the majority of the people got very very drunk (open bar) and quite a few of the guys stripped down and ran around the fire holding flaming sticks between their legs (think of a witch on a broomstick, and you see what i mean). Some of the managers were in that crowd - very hard to look at them with a straight face after that!

[KuzcoLlama]

At my last holiday party, it was nice and casual (over at a person's house) until the kiddies left. Then is was booze and poker.

I won 50 bucks.

This year it's at an actual hall or something like that, so who knows. I'll let you know after tomorrow night, assuming I'm not snookered.

[Spiffy McMoron]

I don't know what the company party is going to be like-we have something to the effect of 200 people that work here, and its going to be at a hotel down the street from work. I imagine that it will be a buffet-style dinner, some cocktails, some boring speeches, and then everyone decides to go to the strippers nearby.

[SuperDan]

I can tell you all about ours since I'm on the committee for it...

Since we're almost never closed while sane people are awake, we have most of our parties in-store from 10am to 8pm on Fridays. The Christmas party is scheduled for December 15.

The conference room and upstairs halway (conference room, payroll office, and store manager's office) will be decorated by a former grocery manager (now a store manager at another store in the company) and some of his kids and their friends. The kids also hang out all day and watch supply and food levels and keep the room clean so we don't need to get employee volunteers for that purpose like we do with our other parties.

The store is providing chicken, mostaccoli, sausage and kraut, green bean casserole, shrimp, rolls, turkey, ham, and probably some other things I'm not remembering, as well as plates, napkins, and silverware. We hit vendors up for soda, ice, breads, chips, and whatever they want to bring in. Employees are encouraged to bring a dish and the Christmas party is one of the two most widely participated in. The store's provided food fills up one banquet table out in the upstairs hallway, then the employee-brought side dishes fill up two or three more, then the employee-brought desserts fill up two more beyond that.

The Christmas tree in the conference room holds a cane for every employee. When someone finds their candy cane, they can take their name off of the cane and put it in the drawing box. That particular drawing box is drawn from the next day for a whole crapload of vendor-donated promotional merchandise, cool displays that people have been asking about, and things of that nature. We also voted to dip into our pizza party fund (since it was much more than we needed anyway) to buy some Best Buy and Longhorn Steak House gift certificates. So a name is drawn from the candy cane drawing box for each item until we run out of items. Usually there are also two drawing boxes by the food--one by the sides and one by the desserts, and if you bring something you put your name in the appropriate boxes and three winners are drawn from each for in-store gift certificates.

So yeah, no booze, and it's not even outside the store, but it's one of our better parties. It's great to take time on your break or after your shift to just sit with your fellow employees and eat so much you end up clocking back in from break 12 minutes late because when your break was up you realized you ate so much you just don't feel like moving. And it's about the closest thing the store gives us to a pre-Christmas stress relief. I like it.

[Knightmare]

Not having one at work. Because it will cost money

Exactly. We're not having one. But if we are, you can be assured that us low-level employess won't be invited.

But last years'... that was fun. I was working at a car dealership. It was held in a swanky country club. It was semi-formal, some boring speeches from the owner and GM. The food was excellent for buffet-style. The owner paid for your first drink but after that you were on your own.

My new car manager, Paul, told three of us not to worry, put everything on his tab. So we did. The next day, he brought the 3 of us into his office and started bitching about us driving up almost $600 on his tab. We started to sweat a bit, then he put on his used-car salesman smile, and told us the worst part was that we didn't bring him any drinks. He had to walk up to the bar and get his own. Then he asked how we liked that party, how hungover were we, and told us that we'd better sell two cars each that day to make up for his bar tab.
We did, amazingly.

Paul was very cool. I miss that guy.

[Jpurple]

Ours was last night, and it was great fun. We had it at a show house/party area that is owned by the school owner, and it was open bar plus a very nice buffet dinner. We played some games, had a few performances, won some very cool prizes in the staff raffle (I was hoping for the Ipod, but didn't win anything )
Some people got very very drunk, and several people ended up in the pool- some by choice, some not!
It is kinda cool to have a Christmas/whatever celebration in December outdoors, but I was glad we had mosquito repellant.

[toomanycalls1]

Christmas

We're having a catered lunch or dinner depending on your shift next weekend.

For our own little department in the office we're having a seperate party. Secret Santas. Pot luck for appetizers, desserts etc and everyone is chipping in for pizzas.

It's going to be at my house. I live really close to the office and we're having it Saturday evening the 16th.