The answer is get invited to 3 office parties that aren't your own
I got invited to 3 other people's office Christmas parties in the last week. The first was a frumpy retirement/xmas bash in a posh golf club in Hampshire. It involved an old school retiring government officer that us business owners all know and love, and whilst meeting his replacement with unease, HB said afterwards "he looked a nice friendly c**t" - but the food was free and I managed to squeeze 4 gin and tonics, HB had about the same, off the government, in the space of an hour. Well worth it.

Cue in party #2, this time in Cornwall, with our lads who work for us and their mates, colleagues who organised it and no Government officers. £15 a head 3-course bash in the evening, disco included but the drinks were expensive. Top employee lad told me he was pissed and looked it then tried to tell his wife he was as sober as a judge, whilst walking like a crab with a port hand list on. There is much more but let's keep it simple.

Party #3 was £20 a head in a local pub that's about to change hands, no-one in there except the landlord and the host, his workers and some mates down our local pub (lots of real ale pubs round here). Host runs a transport company. We sat on a table for 7 in the so-called restaurant and the rest sat on a table next to us for 9. Cue in my immediate person on my left hand side, called G, who I politely said hello to as I didn't know him, and introduced myself. He had 3 teeth in his head I could see and on enquiring what he did the answer was 3 months in Winchester Nick from Jan 1. On further enquiry as to why he got his sentence (coz I'm like that) it appeared he hit a copper. Straight face I then enquire if it was worth the 3 months' time and an affirmative reply came forth. Next case, I thought, so then ask the couple sitting opposite me and HB how they knew the host, and it turns out they run another transport company. They kept disappearing from time to time asking for fresh air and on asking one of the host's employees, called M, turns out they were going out for a spliff and would I care to join them ? Ha ha anyway the 1st course arrives and M and G have pre-ordered cauliflower soup which looks like thin porridge, and say same, which gets a bit of a look from G but what the hell, he hit the Copper, not me, then my/HB starter of chicken liver pate arrives and both plates look like some dog has just.....so on enquiring as to the taste of the soup M says it's fookin' orrible, do ya want a taste? (he was right) where G is lapping it up big time, but keeps saying "you gotta eat ya grub mate" like a true lifer.....so the hippies ordered prawns which looked sorta ok, but then they probably looked like giant prawns after the spliffs. G goes to the gents so M then pours half of his soup into G's bowl to make it look like they've at least eaten half, G comes back from gents and laps up the rest of the soup....cue in waitresses who clear plates with no comment. Main course turns up and G is stuffing his face with rib of beef - on enquiring into the state of the rib I didn't get a look in so it must have been ok cos my turkey was disgusting, and the bread sauce looked like the soup. The wine turns up - surprisingly good for that kind of establishment. Sweet arrives, and someone called J arrives late, so he gets his main whilst we all eat the dessert.

The veg were left on the table (big mistake) whilst the sweets were being served. The choice was cheesecake or xmas pud. I couldn't put my spoon into the pud as it was over-microed and the brandy sauce looked like the soup. The cheesecake was a lump of goo and had as much cream on it as the cake itself. Cue M who is now pissed as a fart, he says "I'm not putting up with this anymore" and throws his cheesecake at J, where the cream stays on J's head and the cake falls in J's turkey. J now looks like a unicorn gone wrong and spouts "you C**T i've only had one F*ck*ng drink" which fuels M into grabbing my xmas pud, rolling it into balls and flinging it at the other table faster than that. Then he starts on the sprouts. A food fight fest ensues, with M grabbing HB's cheesecake and rubbing it - mit cream - into someone's shaven head on the other table. M gets xmas pud forced down his throat...there is food everywhere - floor, table, walls, ceiling....the the host asks if there are any darts...landlord is ROFLHAO cos he's not gonna be there after February......

It was the best £20 I've spent this year.
( Tiggy the diver, Wed 22 Dec 2004, 20:21, Reply)

Being at school and everything...
...There wasn't really meant to be a party. Except one of my ex-friends asked a few people to go see a film with him. But not me. So, I told one of the people at the crappy "party" which probably sucked anyway to call this certain ex-friend an ugly shit, and a few other things. I really wasn't expecting him to actually pass the message on. So now I have my own personal feud.
Go feud!
(NPC, Wed 22 Dec 2004, 19:46, Reply)

working christmas and new years eve :(
and not getting an extra penny for it.
harumph!!!

>^..^<
( catswhiskers the cats mother, Wed 22 Dec 2004, 17:45, Reply)

More Jessops fun...
When i worked for the Jessops store in Manchester they finally acquiesced to demand and took everyone out for the promised Christmas meal in Mid February.

They booked us into a Chinese buffet where the food was dry and tasted of cleaning fluid. Three of the staff got worms and we had to sit next to a hen party who each had a box labeled "fanny wipes" next to their drinks.
(mudflaps, Wed 22 Dec 2004, 16:33, Reply)

marvellous
Our Christmas do this year was a belter. First of all it was cunningly disguised as an 'away day' i.e. lots of sitting around and talking vacuous cobblers about work for next year etc. There were sessions of this jollity in both the morning and afternoon, with our eagerly anticipated "christmas buffet lunch" in between. Cue an unimpressive selection of limp titbits livened up by the free-flowing orange juice and water. Oh, and we had all of 35 minutes to enjoy this epic feast. Who said the spirit of Christmas was dead?
(dillone, Wed 22 Dec 2004, 15:51, Reply)

sword fight in the frost
I used to work at a big castle in Warwickshire (W.... Castle go on guess) Tight arsed cranberrys the bosses wouldn't pay for our pardee. So me and the hairy fellows who hit other for the entertainment of the mewling masses decided to get blasted on 'dark and stormy' Rum and ginger ale mixed in 2 litre bottles and drunk fro the bottle shouting at buses. We did all this in town then snaeked into the castle to smack each other with makeshift swords and maces (watermelon off big branch) whilst proclaiming allegenice to tyhe earl of Warwick. The security thought it was dead funny and left it in my sluuring hands as I had a position of authority and was considered "all right for a mad bugger manager!"

"A WARWICK! A WARWICK!"
(thunk!)
"ooo ya blaggard!"

Merry Crimble
(1st team orc, Wed 22 Dec 2004, 15:19, Reply)

setup? NOOOOO...
My Boss (Willi) is one of these sales arses who wears loud hilarious ties and tells stories about how cool and rich he is, and calls his assistant 'ducky'

So anyway. We had a company-wide 'competition' where you answer 2 multiple choice questions and the winners are 'randomly' selected.

The only person in our branch who won anything was... my boss Willi
Then the secretary comes round collecting money for a christmas present...for my boss Willi

Has the world gone completely bonkers!?!

Luckily the only person who has buggered off early for xmas (without giving us a dinner) is ... my boss Willi, so we opened all his christmas cards, biscuits, chocolates, vouchers and bottles of wine and divided them up between us. ha.
(chesty, Wed 22 Dec 2004, 14:06, Reply)

Good intentions?
After a comment made by one of the staff of "Where is the love" as he got up to say a few words at a staff meeting, the boss announced at the next meeting that she'd been thinking about the comment that was made and to show us that management did "care" she would (get her PA to) organise a crimbo party for us (in January). She then proceeded to ask if we wanted to go, could we write our names on a list on the noticeboard and indicate how much we'd like to pay...

On top of that we've never had any crimbo bonuses and the only reason I got my last pay rise was due to the other two peoples in my department leaving and they couldn't afford to lose me (especially as I'd been waving around a jobs paper).

Of course many of the staff wanted a good party so loads of us went out last Friday night and had lots of fun, food and drink at our own expense. Best thing about it was the boss wasn't invited!

My ex told me of the parties she organised for her company (a certain well known fast food chain) They were quite literally a piss-up in a brewery, with muchos entertainment and a load of money put behind the bar - a lot of the staff were underage, so those who were old enough to drink more than made up for it.
(boxit, Wed 22 Dec 2004, 13:59, Reply)

Tight Fisted Bastards
We're not even having a christmas party. In the past three months we've seen the number of staff here cut to well below half what there used to be.. The boss has just left the office for the rest of the day with no explanation, leaving us monkeys sat here twiddling our thumbs.. how long does a day take when you are bored shitless in work? Forever! The atmosphere in this office is like a watermeloning morgue. I watermeloning hate it here.. and to top it all off, I've just been given a chuffing mince pie for my christmas bonus!! Arrrrrrgh!
(bobba, Wed 22 Dec 2004, 13:41, Reply)

Posh Kebabs
We had our company Christmas lunch yesterday, and what a rip roarer. After several members of staff being "Ill", the directors decided to downsize (read downgrade) our xmas do. Gone were the heady heights of last years do (and originally this years do) of a meal and free bar until you pass out, at the Bierdrome in Islington, no due to the aforementioned illnesses we had our christmas lunch in what can only be described as the wallpapered room behind the kebab shop. Our choices included Shish, Chicken Shish, Doner, or Special Mixed with either rice or chips. This really took the piss as the cranberrys didnt even have the decency to get us pissed first. Try eating a kebab sober, wearing a paper hat, without choking. I don't believe our colleaugues were ill, I have come to the conclusion that the directors have been poisoning the coffee supply for the last two weeks. cranberrys!
(ray bentos, Wed 22 Dec 2004, 13:40, Reply)

Its not all kicks in the nuts
Our staff christmas bash was at Madame Tussauds, free erveythang, plus all the comedians got to take their picture with their face wedged up kylies arse.

Plus I got a payrise to a decent wage and a tasty bonus.

And my kung-fu instructor bought us all champagne on monday.
( Liquid Crystal, Wed 22 Dec 2004, 13:37, Reply)

Not their fault but no ho ho ho
Last year's xmas bash was a watermeloning bad, Frank Sinatra impersonator (did no song that any body knew, not even My Way - how odd) and terrible food style affair. But we did get a few drinks bought for us and a bonus which (just about) reached paper money.

This year one of the bosses' sons has just died, but they're going ahead with the 'party' anyway. D'oh. If all the enforced jolliness goes dreadfully cranberry I'll update...
(lemonymillenniumbaboon, Wed 22 Dec 2004, 12:22, Reply)

work party on the 15 of december this year
all paid for by work. a work that now hates me. we went for a meal at a VERY posh pub.... a certain hare and hound in Marlow, Bucks. sat opposite the MD's wife and shouted about how big Jenna Jamison's tits are. then proceeded to tell my boss that hes a f'ing w**ker for not payng me enough. spilt drink every where, blamed it on the barman. then on the way home, got the guy whos giving me a lift to stop down a country road so i could piss. he reversed back and switched his headlights on full on me (and my 'ahem').... so i waved it at them and walked back to try to kiss the two 50 year old women sat in the back... needless to say they were not impressed.... just like my g/f when she was told....
(45thgenerationroman, Wed 22 Dec 2004, 12:22, Reply)

no office party here
i mean, why would they bother when they pay overtime at basic rate (sometimes they don't even do that)

but I did go to a cracking party once. Frankie and Benny's, drinks all round, back to the pub for a lock in, followed by "kareoke", where me and the boys played guitars on massive novelty spoon things, followed by spitting at ducks in the village pond. And the restaurant undercharged my boss by £90, so we got some champers when we worked christmas day. marvellous.
( rnuk http://flickr.com/rnuk, Wed 22 Dec 2004, 11:49, Reply)

Not really my office party but...
Just plain jealous. From the Times Monday 21st December...

"THE FOOTBALLERS’ CHRISTMAS PARTY is an endangered institution as managers continue their crackdown on excess away from the pitch, but Sir Alex Ferguson, often portrayed as the biggest killjoy of them all, is not slipping into the role of Ebeneezer Scrooge. “Go out and enjoy yourselves,” he told his players on Saturday evening. “Just make sure you stay out of trouble.”
And so Rio Ferdinand, Wayne Rooney and friends headed for one of the city’s more exclusive bars, packed with bottles of champagne and minor celebrities, among them Eric Cantona, who once said that he wished he could stay at United just for the parties. And there was karaoke, doubtless to the delight of Ryan Giggs, and even talk of a mock casino, but the focus would be on the bar, where the aim was to break the record set by last year’s bill, a not inconsiderable £78,000."

78K on a bar bill! Oh why was I born physically dyslexic!
(RenLem, Wed 22 Dec 2004, 10:34, Reply)

I don't go to work.
So I don't have a work to complain about.

No, I'm not on the dole, it's just no-one will hire a 14 year old
( Rev. Cleo still alive, Wed 22 Dec 2004, 9:08, Reply)

Office party? What's that?
We get a 2 hour lunchbreak where we go out for lunch, paid for out of our own pockets. The boss does usually stump up for a drink each, but then we come back to work for the afternoon and are expected to actually work. No bonus, no prezzies, no nothing. :-(

Oooh, first post!
(vixen20879, Wed 22 Dec 2004, 8:56, Reply)

A friend of mine lost his job at x-mas...
... and it was suggested that he might not be welcome at the office party.

The insulting thing was that the company had just given us all cheesy and tacky "We can't spell 'Success' without U" mugs.

We got him another 'speshally-made mug for x-mas... "We can't spell redundancy without U"

I think that the tears were tears of joy...
( Humpty Dumpty was Pushed Is unaware of having any limits., Wed 22 Dec 2004, 8:28, Reply)

Mwahahahaha
Working for a rather well known chain of book shops (not waterstones, the other one) I started my working year at one store, and days after attending the store drink-fest, and recieving an inordinate number of free drinks, I was transfered to another branch, heh! only this time I was given a measly four drinks, instead of the eight offered to everyone else, because i'd already had enough free drinks from the company.

Or so it seemed, four drinks turned into eight, turned into... you get the idea, and the guys in my new place know how to get happy baby orangutaned, a great night was had by all, turned up for the wrong shift the next morning, and late for that. watermeloning brilliant night.

/twopennorth
(thermal_assault, Wed 22 Dec 2004, 1:35, Reply)

Well the works do for me this year
is a "christmas party" on the 7th of january...but only if you arent due to work that night (i can almost guarantee i will be >.< )

so anyway, place bets here that the boss is gonna be standing waiting on the following morning with the breathalyser clocking everyone as they come in to drive their buses

the bastards

still, on the bright side...the company is providing the party, and its a free bar!

i wonder if they are trying to get rid of even more drivers.....
(Craig can be found racing buses in manchester, Wed 22 Dec 2004, 1:02, Reply)

I got....
watermelon all.

I hate Budgens.
(mupps, Tue 21 Dec 2004, 23:26, Reply)

that reminds me
My Christmas present from the FT, Christmas 2002, while I was moving house after just having signed up to a large mortgage and my wife having recently (two months) given birth:

Close down the entire ft.com multimedia (online TV and radio, doncha know) on 22nd December.

As if that wasn't bad enough, it turns out they'd actually made the decision in August and deliberately postponed the announcement until Christmas.

This is apparently a common tactic with redundancies. Staff have two or three weeks over Christmas during which they're less inclined to actually harass people about the "change", so therefore they have less time to respond legally.

Merry Christmas, Britain.

[edit] in fairness, I've got my dates mixed up. My baby was actually 14 months old. But one of the radio people was still on maternity leave when she got the news.
(weedom, Tue 21 Dec 2004, 23:04, Reply)

Im a complete watermeloning loser
ive been looking forward to this christams watermeloning party for ages. I get there, and there are 10 of us. I spent ages watermeloning planning to get there. It been the only thing thats kept me from completely breaking down. Seeing soemone die for the first time the following week didnt exactly help much, and it was his funeral this morning. So im pestering people for ages until i get a lift there. There are 10 of us, the music is shite and i cant get served beer (happy baby orangutanS). So, becasue im not gonna be able to spend the night at a friends house because im going home early, i call my dad for a lift home. 5 minutes later, the party gets going, people actually strat talking to me for the first time that evening, and i dont feel like such a watermeloning loser for the first time since moving here, AND I WALK OUT OF THE watermelonING PARTY BECAUSE MY DAD ARRIVES. The bouncers giving it all 'dont expect to come back in'.

Im such a watermeloning loser.
(Attention Whore, Tue 21 Dec 2004, 22:34, Reply)

Entry Fee.
In my account, employee satisfaction is riding high at 17%. Management couldn't understand why so few of us planned to visit the Site's Christmas Party, after all, it only had a 3 Euro Entry fee.
A 3 EURO entry fee, the most pointless entry fee ever.
That wasn't our only christmas bonus though, (after threats of mass resignation) every body gets the 25th off, although that does mean everyone has to work an extra day in the week to make up for it.
So yeah, I don't plan to stay much longer.
(Nervie, Tue 21 Dec 2004, 21:45, Reply)

Can it get any better than this?
After 11 months and 19 days of employment our crew of welders, and barge repairmen, were all summoned to the "lunch area", durying our regularly scheduled lunch period of course. It was a "be there or be gone" sort of invitation, from the main dudes up at the head office.
Like all good men and boys we made our appearance, with hat in hand, to be greeted by 1 extra folding table, ( we already had one that had been liberated from a trash dumpster), both tables gayly decorated with white paper table coverings, and a box of See's Chocolate Candy for each of us, about 15 in all.
See's by the way is pretty good chocolate, and the mixed boxs we recieved have only a few of the boogers that you eat the outside chocolate off and spit the rest.
What a delight, how nice, we were dully thankfull and said so. Some days later we descovered that what our employer had so generously given us, as a Christmas bonus/gift, was chocolates left over from the head office Christmas party of the previous year. The boxes of chocolates had been stored in a freezer all year to be used as gifts for the working hands the following Christmas.
Just proving you don't become a multi million dollar construction company by pissing away your valuable resources.
(sonoffar, Tue 21 Dec 2004, 20:37, Reply)

Good and bad.............
Used to work in a mental hospital set in spacious grounds. Xmas started about 4pm on xmas Eve when we shoved all the loonies we could into bed (with an extra dose of sleepies) and started the serious drinking.

Handheld wagons were used to transport goods around the grounds and by midnight they were piled up with bodies soaked in urine and sick. All staff of course.

My last memory of xmas 1975 is of our ward domestic, plastered, dressed in a soiled, tattered Santa suit, waving a bottle as the truck he was spreadeagled across gathered speed down the gentle but long slope towards the mortuary. Legend has it that he crashed through the front door shouting 'Merry Christmas!' but I'd passed out on the snow-covered lawn seconds before so I saw nothing.

Xmas 1976, I was at an armaments factory and morale was low at that noisy, grubby place, so a crowd of us went for a few drinks and came back leathered and wrecked the joint. Funnily enough, nobody lost their jobs. I reckon there was too much management fear thet we'd expose the crappy working conditions.

NHS general wards are crap to work on nowadays at xmas but we have wild nights out. For some reason landlords are understanding about customers fighting and barfing if they're nurses!
(A kind of wild justice, Tue 21 Dec 2004, 20:33, Reply)

Lay-offs
A couple of years ago the company I was with laid off a bunch of people right after new year. (Luckily, I wasn't one of them).

Nothing says Happy Christmas like a pink slip after you've blown your wad on Christmas gifts and the Visa bill has just arrived.
(Peelmytangerines, Tue 21 Dec 2004, 18:26, Reply)

Scrooge-like warden
I'm a student so I don't have a boss as such, but when I was a first-year living in halls on campus we were supposed to be kept in check by a resident warden.
In a bout of first-year randomness, myself and a friend on a neighbouring corridor had erected a string telephone between our rooms (we were on the first floor in a kind of L-shaped building). I had the (seemingly) genius idea of using this string as the basis for a huge Merry Christmas banner.
After a truly soul-crushing search for the necessary materials, spending an inordinate amount of effort, and suffering almost dangerous sleep deprivation and great physical hardship (the details of how this banner was constructed are almost comically horrific, but I can't make this post any longer than it's going to be already) we achieved the following... A complete loss of faith in the idea of any kind of 'Christmas spirit' in the universe, a rather unpleasant feeling animosity towards each other (and ourselves), and this banner (also available in stupidly high resolution)

We'd put ourselves through a lot, but the first person (of many) I saw look up at the banner and smile (actually, look up with a 'WTF?' face then breaking into a smile) made it all worthwhile and filled me with a warm glow inside.
So when the warden for our halls drove up an hour later and said 'No, I'm not having that, you've got to take it down.' it came as something of a kick in the teeth... Bastard.

Actually this story has a bit of a happy ending, our own Sub-Warden (in charge of just our block) loved the banner and let us keep it up until just before the warden returned that afternoon.
( fool_on_the_hill, Tue 21 Dec 2004, 17:13, Reply)

Merry Christmas? In your own time! Oh, and cut out the "merry"!
We don't get bonuses at any time of the year and the boss doesn't pay for parties...

Last year after we (the employees) organised a Christmas party at a local restaurant, the boss (who invited himself along) decided to cheer everyone up by ordering lots of bottles of wine along with the meal, which everyone enjoyed to the fullest, until he went home, so we had to pay for his generosity (and his meal).

This year the manglement decided to organise the party, so we've been invited to a local hotel chain for lunch, where (apart from paying for our own transport) we have to pay £50 each to have a two course meal with a free half carafe of wine (we checked! It's a short carafe meaning you almost get a full glass of wine)! However, in entering in the spirit of Christmas, management have told us we have to go back to work afterwards unless we actually drink the wine, in which case we have to use our holidays to book the afternoon off since we can't officially return to work after drinking.

In addition to this magnanimous offer, they also have decided to give us the whole of Christmas week off work, though it does mean our annual holidays have been reduced by three days to cover the three days in the middle (if you don't have 3 left from this year, don't worry, they will take it from your next year's allowance).

Oh and did I mention we've been told that we'll all be on call over the holidays, at no extra expense to themselves?!
(i.e. no extra pay and we have to be within 30 mins of the company... and sober!)

Merry Christmas?? Bah!! Humbuggered more like!!!!
(eight, Tue 21 Dec 2004, 16:56, Reply)

Scrooge like bosses eh?
Well December 21st 2004, and two of my colleagues have been paid off with no warning whatsoever, they finish on the 23rd. It's really created a happy christmas environment in the office.

yarr, bumhugs
( just mike, Tue 21 Dec 2004, 16:30, Reply)