Hanukkah balls
December 11, 2014 12:23 PM   Subscribe

This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's Request -- frimble



 
Nude Gold Spraypainted Barbies is my new all-girl surf rock group.
posted by Juliet Banana at 12:29 PM on December 11, 2014 [21 favorites]


I am pretty certain that this person:
“One of my coworkers got holiday decorations banned permanently after he found all the human and animal shaped decorations (elves, Santas, reindeer, etc.) in the office and arranged them in compromising positions late at night.”
…eventually got their revenge by inventing the Elf On A Shelf, considering what I see in my FaceBook feed from Thanksgiving through Christmas.
posted by wenestvedt at 12:40 PM on December 11, 2014 [5 favorites]


And it's sister, Whore in a Drawer
posted by msbutah at 12:41 PM on December 11, 2014 [15 favorites]


“One of my coworkers got holiday decorations banned permanently after he found all the human and animal shaped decorations (elves, Santas, reindeer, etc.) in the office and arranged them in compromising positions late at night.”

I really don't know why we had a dozen stick-on mustaches at the time, but a friend was housesitting for her parents a few years back and I, possibly after a good deal of holiday cheer, put mustaches on all of their lawn soldiers. Evidently they didn't notice until the next year and decided they made the soldiers look "dignified." I think they've actually replaced the mustaches that have fallen off.
posted by uncleozzy at 12:43 PM on December 11, 2014 [9 favorites]


Elf On A Shelf

Somebody gave us an Elf on the Shelf last year, and this year somebody else sent us the lady Elf on the Shelf.

Let's just say that they have been too busy to report anything to Santa.
posted by uncleozzy at 12:44 PM on December 11, 2014 [22 favorites]


Someone at a job I had ten years ago permanently affected my opinion of Office Christmas Parties. It was my first full year there, and occasionally had dealings with an older-and-more-tenured secretary who had a great sense of humor, so I liked her a lot.

I was on the fence about going to the office party, so I asked her in passing whether she was going one day. She just looked at me with a bit of a smirk, and simply said, "No, because I have a life."

I think I've been to precisely one office Christmas party in my whole life ever since.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:46 PM on December 11, 2014 [7 favorites]


The last office holiday party I went to was in the late 1980s (!) and worked for a large law firm. It was held in a fancy hotel, and my only real memory of it was standing with a few other low-totem-pole proles and commenting on what today would be a buzzfeed article: "14 people you had no idea were fucking each other."
posted by maxwelton at 12:53 PM on December 11, 2014 [16 favorites]


God, I dated a guy who was enslaved to elf on a shelf. He was divorced and had joint custody, so he had to truck that fucking elf from one house to another. He also lived in suburban hell, so I have this idea of all suburbia being terrorized with this elf nonsense.
posted by angrycat at 12:54 PM on December 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


The boss of a small company I know had a bad year, mostly due to his own bad management, and let us all know by allowing the holidays to come and go without acknowledgment. No party, no decorations (he'd had both for at least the prior five years) and when people left on Christmas Eve he merely said, "Good night. I'll see you the day after tomorrow."
posted by kinnakeet at 12:57 PM on December 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


The best thing that ever happened at an office holiday party was during the sit-down meal portion of a near-mandatory terrible fancy dress party, they turned down the lights and started this big media presentation with smarmy music and a slideshow and home videos of the CEO (a horrible, arrogant megalomaniac) starting with baby pictures, accompanied by narration detailing his entire life story. Pretty much every table was excitedly trying to reconcile the idea that somehow the CEO had died and someone had put together this memorial for him all in the past 24 hours since we'd all seen him at the office. Because that would have actually made more sense somehow.

At another company, our department manager had picked out some nice desk picture frames for all the employees and gave them to the department secretary to wrap, but before she did, she got a digital copy of the picture from his work badge, blew it up and printed them out to put the frames. He was horrified when everyone opened their gifts and even more horrified when everyone left his picture in the frame and displayed it prominently on their desk.

PS I later discovered that the life story CEO had apparently hired or coerced a contractor to write a smarmy detailed biography of him on Wikipedia, so I anonymously deleted 95% of it.
posted by ernielundquist at 1:09 PM on December 11, 2014 [54 favorites]


During the 80s I worked for a small newspaper whose staff threw legendary parties.

At one, a terrific local band (The Colorblind James Experience) played as drinks were freely dispensed by the production manager. Commander Cody showed up unannounced and joined the band, and ultimately most of the workers formed a ring in the middle of the layout room, dancing and waving their hands in the air as Commander Cody and Colorblind belted out the tunes. Best Christmas party ever.

One year later, same paper, but this time with the owner planning the party. This time everyone crammed into a back room of a dark German restaurant. No band, but an intoxicated saleswoman favored us with a tabletop dance, providing a close look at her underclothing. After that she threw up on the owner's car door--the highlight of the evening. Worst Christmas party ever.
posted by kinnakeet at 1:10 PM on December 11, 2014 [4 favorites]


No party, no decorations (he'd had both for at least the prior five years) and when people left on Christmas Eve he merely said, "Good night. I'll see you the day after tomorrow."


Was he visited by the ghost of his former partner and three spirits later that evening?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:17 PM on December 11, 2014 [9 favorites]


I used to work for a news program. The office manager came in one weekend and decorated the office for the holidays. He brought a lot of his own decorations from home, wrapped cardboard boxes, went all out to make the office festive. A couple days later, some people doing a video project for a journalism school came in and filmed in our space-- all the cheer was ordered rounded up and stashed away, much to the office manager's (and many other people's) visible disappointment.

Then the outsiders proceeded to be the most intrusive bastards you can imagine: shining lights, dragging around equipment and fucking overtly filming people who were trying to work for b-roll. I don't like normal distractions, so I was infuriated with the idea of people standing over my cubicle with cameras. I picked up my stuff and headed for the one place I could sequester myself-- the empty office. I opened the door, and it was filled with the hastily stowed holiday decorations. I cleared out a crevice in front of the desk and went to work with a scowl. For two days, I worked with my elbows knocking around a pile of Christmas stockings and had to move a plastic menorah to plug in my computer. Hours afterward, I told my wife that it was time for me to look for a new job.
posted by Mayor Curley at 1:18 PM on December 11, 2014 [5 favorites]


One year at our office party at the New England Aquarium we got kicked out for being too rowdy.

Open bar + a sea lion show: what did they expect?!
posted by wenestvedt at 1:20 PM on December 11, 2014 [29 favorites]


I have only been to great holiday parties (I am incredibly lucky). One previous employer waited until mid-January to hold the party because it was so much cheaper and it extended the holiday cheer a few weeks longer. Another would just bring some kegs into the office for the afternoon. The best, though: the owner took everyone out to a bar/restaurant and paid for everything, with the encouragement to eat and drink with abandon because whatever he spent that night, he donated the same amount to a local hunger charity. It was a great place to work.
posted by everybody had matching towels at 1:20 PM on December 11, 2014 [32 favorites]


Owing to the fact that I have been either self-employed, or employed by a sequence of geographically diverse, work-at-home startups for so long, the last office Christmas party I attended was during the Clinton Administration, i.e. in 2000.

It was meh. The company had gotten big, and so had lost a lot of the fun. The only such parties I ever attended and loved were at the same company, but a few years earlier -- when we were 15 people and all in one office and overwhelmingly nerdy and fun, a Christmas party in the banquet room of a tex-mex joint is a pretty good time. At 30 people, a company-paid trip to Dave & Busters -- wherein I nearly talked the (wealthy) CFO into buying his own "Time Crisis" machine -- was almost as much fun.

I understand these experiences are not the norm.
posted by uberchet at 1:29 PM on December 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


I worked at TJ Maxx, 1986-87. During the holiday party, all the employees who weren't managers or over 25 went out to the maintenance guy's doobage van to get high. About 12 of us. We came in and nobody was the wiser!

We were all written up the next day. The managers had been outside the van the whole time.
posted by not_on_display at 1:29 PM on December 11, 2014 [11 favorites]


“Our team of five went out for a Christmas lunch last year and my (admittedly crazy) boss made a show of giving everyone but me a gift ($100 gift card each) …and then she made a show of pointing out how she didn’t give me one.”

Hey! I worked for that asshole, too!
posted by Thorzdad at 1:30 PM on December 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


> "God, I dated a guy who was enslaved to elf on a shelf. He was divorced and had joint custody, so he had to truck that fucking elf from one house to another."

Until I did a bit of internet research and determined that this is some kind of thing for a child, I was seriously wondering exactly what it meant to have joint custody of an elf.
posted by kyrademon at 1:55 PM on December 11, 2014 [13 favorites]


We're having some sort of holiday thing during the afternoon next week but it's a pot-luck since management is too cheap to buy food and it's alcohol free since booze is not allowed on company property. I'll probably skip it.
posted by octothorpe at 1:56 PM on December 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


We came in and nobody was the wiser!

As an aside, it's funny how there's no middle ground between "hah, nobody can tell I'm high," and "oh god, everybody can tell I'm high," and both states of mind are usually incorrect.
posted by prize bull octorok at 1:56 PM on December 11, 2014 [24 favorites]


<chico_marx>I had-a Hanukkah balls once, but I drink a big glass-a warm salty water and dey go away like-a dat!</chico_marx>
posted by McCoy Pauley at 1:56 PM on December 11, 2014 [4 favorites]


Oh, I have some stories!

1. Story One: During the four months I was at one of the worst jobs I ever had, my boss's boss, in an effort to kiss up to her boss, wrote and made us all perform a version of "12 Days of Christmas" with lyrics about our company and mostly the amazing stuff that Boss's Boss' Boss had done that year. He was embarrassed. We were wishing for death. Oh and that was the year we were told to be "festive" but then I got in trouble for wearing a Santa hat to a company party. I still don't know what acceptable festiveness would have been. Or care.

2. Story Two: My husband's job held a party that included spouses, at a local country club. After the food, the boss got up and announced it was bonus time! The bonuses were envelopes that contained 1, 5, 10, 50 or 100-dollar bills. You put your hand in the box and picked out an envelope and hoped for the best. Every time I think about that, I mutter fuck that guy.
posted by emjaybee at 2:00 PM on December 11, 2014 [27 favorites]




My older brother got divorced this year and his kids expect, nay, DEMAND daily, creative Elf on the Shelf activity whenever they are at the house with him--on his back in flour after making "snow angels," etc. Both of my brother's two daughters are old enough that they do not believe in Santa. So this is essentially a case of two tweens torturing their divorced dad. Dance Father, DANCE!

posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:20 PM on December 11, 2014 [9 favorites]


I work at a restaurant. Let me tell you about the time they scheduled our staff Xmas party on November 14th, in that very restaurant.. the same day they coincidentially needed to fill the space with bodies as a film crew was scheduled to be on site to shoot a news segment and tv commercial that is still airing.. Tune in tonight to see our grumpy-ass faces pouting amid the twinkling lights and cheerful holiday music and ambience; especially from the staff members who got to actually work the function, who were informed WHEN THE PARTY WAS UNDERWAY that their shift was to continue... here, Merry Christmas, feed and pour drinks for your coworkers! You're welcome!

Still beats my "woke up at 8pm in a ditch outside the casino" work Xmas party of 2 years ago, though.
posted by wats at 2:26 PM on December 11, 2014 [4 favorites]


Best christmas parties I've been to - mom & pop restaurant and bar. The place shut down for about a week around Christmas, and the first or second day of the vacation we had our party. Employees, spouses, dates, and a few select friends of the bar were invited. There was a joke gift swap, the worse present the better, but the real fun involved the annual party challenge of drinking the beer display cooler empty. This was about 3-400 beers. Between 20 or so people. Everyone in town knew about this party and wanted to get in but it wasn't always an easy ticket. After they had been doing this for 14 or so years, the second year I was there the owner/wife decided this challenge led to far too much debauchery. So they hired a bartender from another place in town, and let everyone drink anything in the place (now including the liquor), but no pressure to drink the place dry. This was a really bad idea. I think the first order shouted out as we walked in was for 14 tic tacs and 12 car bombs. You know, to start out the night. The bartender we had was a friend of mine, and the look in his eye for a second was sheer panic, but he did really well. And he made a shitload of money considering that the majority of his 'patrons' were bartenders and servers getting blotto.

God I miss those parties.
posted by efalk at 2:27 PM on December 11, 2014


Here in Mass, the State Fire Marshall's office has issued a fire safety warning about the Elf on the Shelf. Apparently he's a bit of a pyro.
posted by pie ninja at 2:28 PM on December 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


I worked for a publishing company that was merged with an international news agency. Said news agency was the biggest bunch of capitalist scum ever seen (and I've seen a lot of capitalist scum). They cleaned out every perk we enjoyed and then the layoffs started. Among the many perks that were lost were our Christmas parties (while the new bosses enjoyed a sumptuous event in London). Our director, a man who I would follow into the gates of hell, had enough left in his budget for one last party. So he threw a Festivus party, complete with an aluminum pole and an airing of grievances. It was a great act of defiance.
posted by Ber at 2:30 PM on December 11, 2014 [22 favorites]


2. Story Two: My husband's job held a party that included spouses, at a local country club. After the food, the boss got up and announced it was bonus time! The bonuses were envelopes that contained 1, 5, 10, 50 or 100-dollar bills. You put your hand in the box and picked out an envelope and hoped for the best. Every time I think about that, I mutter fuck that guy.

Did you get to keep yours?
posted by ricochet biscuit at 2:31 PM on December 11, 2014


At one, a terrific local band (The Colorblind James Experience) played as drinks were freely dispensed by the production manager. Commander Cody showed up unannounced and joined the band, and ultimately most of the workers formed a ring in the middle of the layout room, dancing and waving their hands in the air as Commander Cody and Colorblind belted out the tunes. Best Christmas party ever.

Colorblind James Experience! This really IS the best Xmas party ever.
posted by mykescipark at 2:34 PM on December 11, 2014 [3 favorites]


So a few years back we had the holiday party right down the street from my home. Unfortunately, I had no babysitter for the night and my wife had work (no spouses sort of party) - so I had declined to go. My boss, insisted that I bring my kids, so I stop off at home, pick them up and bring them to the restaurant. They had a great time, were well behaved - and it was genuinely fun for everybody. 6:30 rolls around, and I have my daughter in my arms (she was 5 months) and I tell my son it is time to go. He bursts into tears and runs screaming under a table. I say "I know buddy, I feel the same way I have to leave my coworkers too" whereupon everybody bursts into laughter and we extricated my son from under the table with him crying.
posted by Nanukthedog at 2:41 PM on December 11, 2014 [5 favorites]


Still beats my "woke up at 8pm in a ditch outside the casino" work Xmas party of 2 years ago, though.

That sounds like an awesome party.

One year the office Christmas party just kind of snowballed (ahem) into wildness. Somehow (I don't know how and I was part of the committee that organized the thing) this included thousands and thousands of little LED pins and bracelets and what not for people to festoon themselves with. Highlight of the night included the CEO announcing the main act on the stage, hinting (believably; it had been a very good year) that it was Cher.

Nope, drag queens. Everyone went bananas having fun, and they partied with us all night. Somewhere there are some pretty magical photos of a bajillion little twinkly LEDs flashing all over the place--on people, on walls, on the venue staff, hurled into corners--and the more, ahem, dedicated crew rocking the dancefloor.

Then there was the legendary once-yearly open-bar-and-bring-a-friend party at the bar I worked at a zillion years ago. 'Debauchery' doesn't even come close. Absolute mayhem.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:48 PM on December 11, 2014 [3 favorites]


this is all why I've generally avoided work most of my life
posted by philip-random at 2:51 PM on December 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


The only disastrous holiday party I ever attended was disastrous in a way that was beyond unamusing, so doesn't belong in this thread. Best holiday party: U of Chicago Press, mid-90s. Instead of giving the employees the usual "here, have a $50 gift certificate for a book," they hauled out all the hurts/returns, pointed us to grocery bags, and told us to take as many as we could carry. We all got the equivalent of $300-$400-worth of books. *sighs wistfully*

Hey, I'm an academic. That was an awesome party.
posted by thomas j wise at 2:56 PM on December 11, 2014 [27 favorites]


Many years ago I worked at a company that threw a Christmas party every year. They would pay for the booze, but no spouses were allowed. That's probably because the married president had at least one affair with an employee. The worst part was, They would give out "gifts" to employees that were freebies received from vendors they ordered stuff from. They saved them up all year to give away.
posted by annsunny at 3:20 PM on December 11, 2014


Stupid Christmas gathering in break room. As stupid head of company shakes champagne bottle up, I say "Don't open that, people have had their eyes taken out with flying corks."
Stupid boss pops bottle.
Shazam, it's a three cushion shot into his administrative assistant's eye.
I slink away.
She didn't lose the eye, but she was pretty darned upset.
posted by cccorlew at 3:21 PM on December 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


I've been freelance for quite a number of years now, but I recently became aware that office holiday parties are making a slow, tentative comeback, which is great, because how else are you ever supposed to get blackmail dirt on your boss?

But when I was an Office Person, I worked for three different companies, two years apiece. IN EVERY COMPANY, the following pattern was observed:

Year 1: Absolutely outstanding, splash-out, formal-dress, open-bar, rented-skating-rink all night bash followed by the next day off.

Year 2: Costco brownies in the conference room. Brownies that we paid for ourselves.

Year 3: Unemployed.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 3:22 PM on December 11, 2014 [13 favorites]


We're having a Christmas meal next week, but you pay for everything yourself. The perks of working for the British civil service.
posted by knapah at 3:35 PM on December 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


I guess I've had a mixed bag with this sort of thing.

Worst experience: mid/late '80's, my first year out of college and I somehow landed a technical writing job with a bank in OKC drafting a procedure manual. Not a great fit, but it was a job that let me use my English degree, so I was pretty happy just to have it. My manager and I did not see eye-to-eye on a number of things, however, and that came to a head in early December when she took our team out for a holiday lunch. She pointedly asked me in front of everyone "if I had gotten my tree yet?" I told her I hadn't (Jewish, not-my-holiday, sorry), and she icily replied, "Well, you're wrong, you know," followed by a world class "you're gonna burn in Hell, Jew" glare. Thanks boss, and, uh, Merry Christmas to you, too...

Best times: working in Silicon Valley in the late 90's, when companies' holiday party budgets were similar to NASA's budget for the entire Apollo program. Oh, the excesses...delicious, ridiculous, stoopid jaw-dropping excesses! One year my wife's company party had an entire room dedicated to serving freshly made sushi, and they had 8-12 chefs on hand making it as fast as folks would eat it, while in another room they had a frozen waterfall ice sculpture that was overflowing with plates of caviar and bottles of vodka -- "have as much as you want, we have plenty!" I found out the hard way that yeah, if you eat too much sushi, chase it with too much caviar, and wash it all down with too much vodka, your body might not like that sort of three pronged attack, and might make you pay a heavy price for the overindulgence. It sure was fun at the time, though :-)
posted by mosk at 3:42 PM on December 11, 2014 [3 favorites]


Then there was the legendary once-yearly open-bar-and-bring-a-friend party at the bar I worked at a zillion years ago. 'Debauchery' doesn't even come close. Absolute mayhem.

Oh man, I wish I could properly convey the madness of the legendarily disastrous myspace holiday party that happened near the peak of myspace's myspaceyness. There were more than one year of holiday parties, but everyone knew what you meant if you talked about that one.

At various points in the evening, a propane heater was punched into a pool of water (employee banned from all future company parties), turkey was thrown at walls and an unsuspecting cleaning person (employee fired), someone trying for some time to pick a fight with someone else that was completely passed out on a couch (actually I think that was also the turkey thrower) and a bunch of other incidents that need far too much background to explain.
posted by flaterik at 4:06 PM on December 11, 2014


“A woman who had worked at our office for more than twenty years pouted and threw tantrums like a child if she didn’t win a door prize at the annual Christmas dinner. Every time someone else’s name was randomly drawn, she would yell, ‘FIX!”’ or ‘CHEAT!’ or something similar. And one year, she just snatched a prize she really wanted from the table and told the person who won the prize, ‘I DESERVE this,’ and walked away with it.”

I'm having something akin to a panic attack trying to imagine what working with this woman must have been like.
posted by The Card Cheat at 4:23 PM on December 11, 2014 [10 favorites]


and a bunch of other incidents that need far too much background to explain.

All I can say is everybody learned the answer to "So, two gay men, a lesbian, and a straight man go into the washroom of a gaybar" one year. Because they left the door open.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 4:31 PM on December 11, 2014 [7 favorites]


I worked at a small eatery that was part of a bigger chain. We were supposed to have Christmas parties with a small budget paid to each branch. My first year there, the Christmas party was hyped up by all the employees. The day comes though, and it's a huge snowstorm. I try driving in, I'm 16 and don't care that it's snowing. But I can't make it up the hill on the main road. It's not a particularly steep hill, but it's that slippery out. Call work and explain I won't be making it in. I think it's no big deal but the location manager just explodes. Okay. Nothing is said when I'm back at work, but it turns out the only person who made it to the party other than the manager lived two blocks away, and the manager kept her there an uncomfortably long time.

Next year rolls around, and everyone asks when the Christmas party is going to happen. Manager angrily shouts about how no one showed up at the last party and so we're not doing one this year! There was a crew of 4 working and we're all like WtF? It was dangerous to drive. Manager didn't remember that at all, just that we all bailed on the party.

They would give out "gifts" to employees that were freebies received from vendors they ordered stuff from. They saved them up all year to give away.

Ha! A company I worked at did something similar. Only it was often gifts from clients as thank you meant for specific people that worked on their project. Usually for teams that pulled crazy hours, weekend shifts, 3am rolls and more importantly, often had a direct relationship with the client and addressed to specific people. Some of the stuff was pretty nice, all things considered. It usually ended up delivered to the team, only to have someone from HR take it away after. Then raffle it off at this Christmas party, often to people who had no part in that side of the business. To make it worse, most of the people not involved in that work thought it was the company providing the gifts. The stingy bastards wouldn't even offer their own products for prizes.

But "We put our faith in Blast Hard cheese" nails it.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 4:33 PM on December 11, 2014


One year there were layoffs the day before the worker bee holiday luncheon. Now we know how the company could afford to give us a choice of chicken or fish.

This year they were smart and laid us off the day after the holiday party.
posted by infinitewindow at 4:40 PM on December 11, 2014


I've spent the last 15-ish years working for companies that have lunchtime potlucks. I recently got a new job that is having an honest-to-goodness real party at a venue, with food and booze provided. My wife and I are staying at a hotel downtown afterward.

I'm looking forward to it.
posted by Fleebnork at 5:01 PM on December 11, 2014


my most absurd holiday party story - A friend was working for a big tech company and she took me to their xmas party. The company was doing well, so it was an all-out affair; formal, full dinner, open bar, in a hotel convention area, they even had an oxygen bar. So we're hanging around, drinking waaaay too much, fairly hopped up on oxygen, wearing evening gowns, and we find a little side room that's decorated like a library. In it is a full-sized sleigh, covered in tinsel and bows and balloons and the like. While talking to someone, I lean against it and discover that it's actually on wheels. It didn't take us long to convince a guy to take us for a lap of the party. I fondly remember the looks of bafflement on people's faces when this sparkly sleigh burst out of the side room, dragged by some hapless fellow while we whipped him with a 6 foot candy cane made of balloons while yelling "mush! mush!"
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 5:05 PM on December 11, 2014 [28 favorites]


You know, I don't think I've ever actually been to a workplace holiday party in my life.

That will change tomorrow. Spouse's new workplace is throwing their annual Holiday Ceilidh.

Hm. Should I be terrified?
posted by kyrademon at 5:09 PM on December 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


I usually just told my coworkers I was a Jehova's Witness.
posted by Cookiebastard at 5:14 PM on December 11, 2014


We're slaves to Elf on the Shelf here at home, so I spent the day sculpting our savior, our Dark Elf on the Shelf. Malekiff will creep into the morning tableaus over the next several days, his butterknife scythe raised high.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 5:58 PM on December 11, 2014 [12 favorites]


Holiday parties are great because they remind you exactly whom you need to avoid for the next year. Like the perfectly nice receptionist who slunk up to me and gave a glare at our IT lady, who happens to be a transwoman, and slurred, "What'sh with the she-he?"

Our chancellors always have to host multiple parties for different kinds of schmoozing. They used to host three nights in a row at the official residence (once for staff, once for deans, once for important community people -- or something of the sort) until the year when both the chancellor and his wife had very bad cases of the flu and had to deal with being immediately above said parties while trying not to die.

My first year on campus, the nasty woman in my department said, "You're wearing THAT?!?!" so I had to trot my broken-elbowed self down to the Gap in a foot of slush before showing up. The party was at the executive education center and had fancy chafing dishes on all of the stairway landings, with a room dedicated entirely to chocolate.

Which is why I was so surprised the next year when they held it in... the crew team's weight room.

I know they wanted to show off some of the newest campus facilities, but the room still had all of the machines shoved in the corner and the workouts posted on the wall. We couldn't hear the a cappella group at all because of the low ceiling and carpeting (no biggie, since they sang EVERY YEAR).

With the athletic department catering, they ended up with two 30-foot open bars bookending the room, with a couple of small round tables of veggies/cheese and one table of tiny hot hors d'oeuvres. For something like 500 people.

Needless to say, things got a little wacky. I left alongside one rather sedate administrator, who I believe was barefoot and carrying her heels stuck into her belt. The worst offender was this student intern from Legal (probably not of age) who had barely made it on the guest list and was now approximately eight sheets to the wind. He was something like 6'7" and 180, so that stuff made its mark right quick.

Every time I passed him, he would pull me over and say, "LISTEN! I'm gonna say hi to everyone. But what I REALLY wanna do is go talk to [the Dean of Students]. I'm gonna say, '[Dean's Name], you're my favorite lesbian!' I'm gonna do it!"

"I don't think that's a very good idea."

"I'm gonna do it! I'm totally gonna do it!"

He did it.

Last anyone saw, he was passed out in a bush by the tennis courts.
posted by Madamina at 6:11 PM on December 11, 2014 [10 favorites]


You know, my workplace is a really old school sales company and that comes with a whole list of complaints. But at Christmas, when other people I know get some cupcakes or some lame Secret Santa exchange and my boss says, "How about we just go to Gibson's and get some steaks and martinis?" Well, that part is pretty cool.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:16 PM on December 11, 2014 [3 favorites]


octothorpe: We're having some sort of holiday thing during the afternoon next week but it's a pot-luck since management is too cheap to buy food and it's alcohol free since booze is not allowed on company property. I'll probably skip it.

If Ursus Comiter reads this, I just want him to know that my daughter really is sick at home and that is the only reason that I will not be at our potluck, booze-free department holiday party tomorrow afternoon from noon to 2:00.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:26 PM on December 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


Ah, office parties...

Small company, 25 employees or thereabouts, boss and wife on the way to divorce, party in a local restaurant. Both get drunk and start arguing and shouting, he picks up an ice bucket and throws the contents at her, but misses her and soaks the patrons at the next table. It all went downhill rather quickly from there.

And that was one of the *good* ones...
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 6:38 PM on December 11, 2014


*shudders* My place of work has two things: a Secret Santa and a holiday potluck. No, thank you. Technically since I've moved into the office side of things I should be on the "Fun Committee" raising money from my co-workers for whatever insipid party we have via "jeans days". (n.b. most of them are lucky if they earn more than 8 dollars a hour. Getting to wear jeans after paying for that privilege ain't going to boost our 48% employee engagement rating!)

Fuck that.
posted by lineofsight at 6:40 PM on December 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


Malekiff will creep into the morning tableaus over the next several days, his butterknife scythe raised high.

Pics or GTFO.
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:52 PM on December 11, 2014 [6 favorites]


Christmas Eve he merely said, "Good night. I'll see you the day after tomorrow."

Reminds me of the handshake I got for growing my dept. 300% in 2012.
posted by Devils Rancher at 7:20 PM on December 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


Spouse's new workplace is throwing their annual Holiday Ceilidh. Hm. Should I be terrified?

Go and be ready to boogie because ceilidhs are the shiznit.

I actually am breaking my no-holiday-party streak this year - for the first time in a long while I actually LIKE the place I work during the day, and a coworker is on the party planning committee and I hear that they have a DJ that may actually be somewhat decent. (I also offered to help man the party the day of, which I actually like doing and may get me brownie points at a place where I'm techincallly still a temp.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:22 PM on December 11, 2014


The winery I volunteer for throws the best "Anti-Holiday" party every year. Mid-January in the ass end of Michigan, at the vintner's house. Dan pulls out "archive" wines, we compare vintages, everyone brings one or two dishes to pass...and I might make it back home to Ohio by breakfast.
posted by MissySedai at 7:38 PM on December 11, 2014


Pics or GTFO

Here's the clay drying. Still needs to be painted and joined with the poorly sewn elf body I made. He'll probably have a half cloak and some duct tape trim.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 7:46 PM on December 11, 2014 [15 favorites]


I worked at a small Seattle ISP in the late 90's and for the first few years of business just about every company party would eventually dissolve into an alcohol-and-drug fueled orgy/e-pile. Christmas was no exception. Bodies in various states of undress still passed out on the office couches the next morning while the phone support staff did their best to not disturb them was all too common. I think they're owned by Best Buy now; I haven't bothered going to any other company Christmas parties since.
posted by bizwank at 7:47 PM on December 11, 2014


At my library we have a party while the library is open. So we crowd into the back room and eat random food while taking turns running out to the desk to see if anyone needs us. It's so relaxing.

As for elves: I have had a vintage knee-hugger elf for decades. It's name is L'Elfe, and it is a genderless scamp. My sister and I used to concoct all kinds of shenanigans for it and even invented a language. But the point was that L'Elfe was bad, and gave no fucks. Then this elf on the shelf thing came along and made knee-hungers look like simpering goofs. My elf doesn't do tricks. It sits on the mantel and judges.
posted by Biblio at 8:45 PM on December 11, 2014 [3 favorites]


I don't have any wacky holiday party stories because I went to work right as the ol' "night time, hold them somewhere else besides work, drinks involved" parties were running out of money. Nowadays it's a catered lunch for an hour and a half, we have to bring our own dessert. Also, this year it was held December 2.

*yawn*

Oh well, still better than going to work.

My favorite from the link is the Jew's First Christmas. Dang, lady.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:59 PM on December 11, 2014


I'm Jewish, but I'm a Baroque musician. This is my busy season - it's not unusual to do two caroling gigs and a churchy thing that same evening. 5-7 days a week from US Thanksgiving through mid-January. However, I was recently hit by a car while all ready on crutches due to foot fractures. I play the double-bass sized viola da gamba, or recorders the size of bassoons. Not physically possible until I heal a bit.
This year, I do not have to sing/play even one song about Jesus. Not a single.blessed.one. No caroling, wassailiing, Messiah-ing or anything even close.
Maybe I'll finish that grant app for Handel's Judas Maccabeus in 2015 or 16.
posted by Dreidl at 10:35 PM on December 11, 2014 [6 favorites]


Ah, my turn for my favourite Christmas party story. A bit of background first though: I used to work at a private tutoring company in Oxford. The kids and the management were generally awful, but a lot of the lower down staff were good fun, a mixture of postgrads who needed the money and teachers who needed a break, that sort of thing.

For our Christmas party, we had a meal booked at an Oxford college. It was a very sombre affair: black suits, waiters, silverware, the whole caboodle. I was sitting to the right of my manager, and one of my friends was sitting to her left. She was very prim, and kept on using awful conversation starters you could tell she'd memorised. After a few minutes of stilted conversation, she'd pull out the next one. At one point, she asked 'what's the most embarrassing thing you've ever done', and proceeded to tell us at great length about the time she put salt instead of sugar in someone's tea. After she'd finished, my mate, with a massive grin on his face (and in his west country drawl), said 'Ah, that's nothing, this one time I was lying in bed with my girlfriend, just minding my own business and I accidentally shat all over her'. At that exact moment, there was a silence all round the table, everyone stared at him, my manager started choking on her precisely cut vegetables, I collapsed into a fit of giggles, and he just leant back looking content. It was beautiful.

Later on that night, when we were really pissed, we ended up breaking into the CEOs office to cook chipolatas on the open fire he insisted was always lit there. Sometimes I miss that job.
posted by Ned G at 2:51 AM on December 12, 2014 [4 favorites]


A woman I know had recently moved to the Atlanta area and was attending her first holiday party, which the large corporation she'd begun working for held in a hotel. We'll call her Barb. Barb grew up in a hard-drinking family and she had a large thirst; at some point in the evening she sought relief for a full bladder and was unable to locate a restroom without a line, so she went out to the darkened pool area which was fenced with shrubs. Her plan was to hoist her fancy dress and do her thing in the darkness of the bushes; unfortunately as she backed in she learned that the shrubbery hid a precipitous drop into a muddy ditch.

Barb managed to scramble back up the embankment, now soiled in various ways. It seemed logical to wash off. Which she did, by jumping into the pool, sequins, muddy heels and all. She then proceeded to climb out of the pool and rejoin the party, complete with dripping handbag, and continue drinking.

Apparently her new co-workers were impressed; she was voted as having the "Most Christmas Spirit" on the spot. The prize was a bottle of booze.
posted by kinnakeet at 5:53 AM on December 12, 2014 [3 favorites]


One of the photos from our holiday party this year ended up in a buzzfeed listicle about embarrassing office holiday parties. So you know it was a good one.

Some of your stories are heartbreaking. $1 bonuses? "Can we have the twenty back"?
posted by lwb at 6:28 AM on December 12, 2014 [2 favorites]


University. Working for the school (as well as being an undergrad). Student association Christmas party. Drink tickets 50 cents per; yes, twenty bucks bought you forty drinks. The drink tickets were so plentiful it was like when the devalued the mark in Germany after WWI, when people needed a wheelbarrow full of cash to buy a loaf of bread.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:30 AM on December 12, 2014 [1 favorite]


Our department holiday parties for a number of years have been potlucks supplemented with additional purchased stuff, plus a liberal quantity of alcohol. They technically were lunchtime parties, but in reality the rest of the day was a wash. Since there were a lot of people who have done a lot of work in a variety of countries, the potluck foods tended to be more than just chips and salsa (or if they were, the salsa was home made at least). It was so great someone made up a departmental cookbook with recipes (since these are Anthropologists, the cookbook is called The Raw and the Cooked Book, in honor of this.) Things have declined a bit in recent years, especially last year, so this year they are cheerleading to get people to make and bring more interesting food; fingers crossed it works.

Something that has been an upgrade rather than a decline in recent times are the special decorated cakes that a couple of people have been making every year in recent years. Here is a blog with info. on the 2013 cake. Flickr set of the 2013 cake. More on past party cakes, with photos.
posted by gudrun at 6:52 AM on December 12, 2014 [5 favorites]


This is a tangent, but -

I'm Jewish, but I'm a Baroque musician. This is my busy season - it's not unusual to do two caroling gigs and a churchy thing that same evening. 5-7 days a week from US Thanksgiving through mid-January.

My roommate is a classical singer and voice instructor. He joked that I basically wasn't going to be seeing him much at all this month, what with all his own performances and him going to his students' performances. And he's right - I think for 4 nights out of the past week, I haven't even heard when he's come home because i've been already asleep.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:14 AM on December 12, 2014


For the first time in my almost-7 year tenure at this job, we will be having an office-wide holiday party (at the office) with alcohol (two drink tickets). It's a small step, but considering our recent employee satisfaction survey showed that we all think the company is no fun and doesn't celebrate anything, it's a step in the right direction.

We are also doing a department lunchtime potluck/Yankee Swap, but that's usually not terribly fun. I bring in exquisite food and people are afraid to try it, and then the gift exchange is boring because people are not creative. I hope the Exquisite Chickens 2015 calendar will spice things up a little bit.
posted by backseatpilot at 8:18 AM on December 12, 2014


Oh my god, did you guys look at the anthropology cakes gudrun posted? They're a FPP into themselves. Look at these chocolate sarcophogi!!
posted by Juliet Banana at 9:30 AM on December 12, 2014


I had never heard of elf on the shelf until this year. I have been alive since 1974.
posted by josher71 at 10:49 AM on December 12, 2014 [1 favorite]


I've only been to one office Christmas party. I'd only been in the job for a couple of months and I felt kind of obliged to go along. In the end I had my head bashed against the ceiling by a meathead New Zealander who felt he had to prove how strong he was by lifting a skinny 20-something, and another colleague got his balls out and showed them to everyone. Just popped them out of his flies. Yeah, I snuck off shortly after that.

But the weirdest thing is that the guy who bared his balls joined my team a couple of months later... and I became great friends with him. It was at his leaving do that his now-wife persuaded me to join her community theatre group, and I've since performed in four plays with them. Just goes to show... actually, I have no idea what the moral of that story is. Don't judge a guy by his bollocks?
posted by Acey at 10:52 AM on December 12, 2014 [3 favorites]


Seconding the "ho-lee CRAP" reaction to Gudrun's cakes.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:56 AM on December 12, 2014 [1 favorite]


There is more to the barbie story! These articles were written by Alison Green, whose main blog is Ask a Manager. These stories all came from her readers (it's one of the few blogs where you actually do want to read the comments). And since it is apparently a small world after all, another reader actually saw someone with one of the gold barbies in a bar!
posted by radioamy at 12:49 PM on December 12, 2014


THE LEGEND IS REAL
posted by Juliet Banana at 1:16 PM on December 12, 2014 [1 favorite]


CEILIDHS WOO

tHere was som whisky yes
posted by kyrademon at 4:26 PM on December 12, 2014 [7 favorites]


Just got back from my wife's tech company office holiday party. They rented out a whole history museum and had (multiple) open bars for five hours. I might be a teeny bit drubk. Octothorpe on the dance floor is a scary sight.
posted by octothorpe at 8:58 PM on December 12, 2014 [1 favorite]


Malekiff the Dark Elf hangs out with Morty the Shelf Elf. All it will take is one call from Krampus and the dude in red will be the dude in dead.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 10:46 AM on December 13, 2014 [9 favorites]


josher71: "I had never heard of elf on the shelf until this year. I have been alive since 1974."

It only started in 2005.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:13 AM on December 18, 2014 [1 favorite]


It only started in 2005.

That makes me feel better.
posted by josher71 at 8:40 AM on December 18, 2014


I just saw while shopping that they now make outfits for your elf, including sports team jerseys and ugly sweaters and accessories even.

Someone has published an article claiming that the Elf is "preparing kids to live in a police state by making them comfortable with constant surveilance," but I think the actual application of the elf has been "parents wanting to make it not look weird that they're secretly getting all caught up in playing with dolls again".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:16 AM on December 18, 2014


Oh, and because this is about Christmas office parties -

Today on my way to work I saw a handful of people in very obvious "i'm going to the office holiday party" attire. Two guys in particular stood out -

* For one guy, I noticed the kelly-green bow tie first. Over a white dress shirt and a navy-blue sport coat. It wasn't until he was passing me, though, that I saw that his dress pants bore a subtle, yet noticeable, holly-sprig-and-ribbon pattern.

* But then I saw one guy wearing an ugly Christmas sweater in a GREMLINS pattern. And all I could think was, "damn, whatever office party YOU'RE going to, I wanna go."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:20 AM on December 18, 2014


I just saw while shopping that they now make outfits for your elf, including sports team jerseys and ugly sweaters and accessories even.

Like I mentioned upthread, somebody gave us the Lady Elf this year. She's pictured on the box wearing a skirt, captioned, "Skirt Sold Separately." (For the record, she is otherwise nearly-identical to the Gentleman Elf, except that she is wearing earrings.)

I hate the Elves so much. So, so much.
posted by uncleozzy at 9:26 AM on December 18, 2014


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