The Corporate Holiday Party

They’re back this year…holiday parties. The most rational people are realizing that, despite ongoing discoveries of new variants, COVID is receding and being around people isn’t a life-threatening endeavor.

I never thought I’d miss the idea of getting together with colleagues in the spirit of this season. I don’t much like Christmas, with its hyper-commercialized trappings and forced sentiment. But I have missed it.

My feelings around this time of the year tend toward melancholy, so the celebration of each season blends together in my memory in a kaleidoscopic blur of red and green and glitter. On top of that, the idea of dealing with the quirky personalities of co-workers in a gathering orchestrated by someone who signs our paychecks never seemed as savory or as necessary as others seemed to believe.

I remember one very stodgy corporation where I worked for a time. We’re talking old-school, mahogany trimmed offices, a pastry cart which rolled past our desks each day at coffee-break hour; a corporate cafeteria which served up creative and substantial lunches at a fraction of restaurant prices. The company Christmas party was a staid and honorable tradition held in one of the most expensive catering halls in town.

My co-worker Diane, a girl in her 20’s—like me—had started dating someone new and was thrilled to have an escort for the party. I was already married at the time, so it wasn’t an issue for me.

Diane agonized over each meticulous detail of preparations for the big night for weeks ahead of it. She had her long black hair done professionally in a gorgeous upsweep held in place by hair spray and bobby pins. A manicure and pedicure were part of her pre-party ritual. She’d spent a fortune on a beautiful blue velvet gown and shoes dyed to match. I remember wondering if the new guy was going to be worth it. Or if she were actually doing all this for all of us.

It was inevitable that, on the big night, he was a no-show. I really felt for her when she left early, in tears. But to me, it was just one more reminder that pushing so many hopes and dreams into one event—and an event that was work-related at that—was like begging to be disappointed.

Still, dressing to impress wasn’t entirely out of my realm. Because, I have a photo of myself a half-dozen years later at a different company Christmas party, this time as a newly-divorced woman working in radio news, decked out in a revealing russet-colored gown with my hair in a similar upsweep—albeit not professionally. The memory is vague, and I wonder whom I was hoping to impress.

A few years later I was back in New York, about to start a new job as editor at a magazine, when the top brass invited me to their holiday party.

It was held the Friday before Christmas, in the afternoon, at their office with catered menu and a copious amount of alcohol brought in. I was happy to be a part of the team and didn’t realize the type of party everyone else already knew it to be.

It was the free-flowing booze. By 3:30 everyone, including me, was three sheets to the wind. Jokes were turning from edgy to nasty; mild flirtations were becoming dangerous. The highlight of the afternoon was the Secret Santa gift unwrapping. The unspoken policy was, that no matter who your secret name was, you were to get the most disgusting, insulting, insufferable gift imaginable.

From sex toys purchased at Times Square to those irritating practical jokes you see in catalogs but would never stoop to buy, no employee escaped. I almost made it out unscathed because I was the new girl and no one had bought me a gift.

I say “almost,” because at one point in the boss’ office, I was being madly flirted with by him and three other guys and managed to bring all of them to shocked silence when I turned the subject to certain sexual practices. It was the liquor talking.

The startled, intrigued expression of the boss made me feel like the company fool who dons a lampshade on his head. I made a hasty exit at once, reeling from the rum and cokes I’d been swilling, but I made it the three city blocks and down the stairs into the subway for the commute home. Once on the deserted platform, I was seized by an unrelenting wave of nausea that ended up with me vomiting into a trash can and losing a contact lens in the process.

I called my mother when I got home, and diplomatically avoiding the subject matter which had prompted my rapid retreat, I told her I’d drank too much, had gotten sick, and was wondering if I’d still had the job. I don’t remember her response except that it involved laughter, which in its own way was reassuring. I fretted about the job the rest of the weekend.

Yet when I showed up for work on Monday, it was as if the party and all the drunken insanity had never happened. I worked there for the next three years.

Subsequent corporate holiday parties seemed mild by comparison and so conjure up only vague memories. At one newspaper I worked for, I used Christmas carols to create song parodies which incorporated jokes about the boss, the staff, and our industry—I got everyone to sing along with them by handing out lyric sheets.

Another town, another job, and a time when everything was going well brings thoughts of a party at a radio station owner’s rural home, simple, friendly, and only the mildest of gifts for the Secret Santa.

Some smaller New York City offices where I worked had an employee lunch instead of a party. My recollection of these mellow, late-afternoon affairs includes sophisticated martinis or fine wines; delicious food, and colored Christmas lights like little bursts of joy beaming back at me as daylight slipped into winter darkness and New Yorkers hurried past laden with packages.

Equally as mellow have been holiday parties at a private club for a prestigious firm where I do part-time work. It’s held during the afternoon on a workday. The food and service are among the best in town; the bar is open, but the employees know their limits. One worker dons a Santa suit and distributes gifts. And, afterwards, most of the group makes its way to the private bowling alley in the basement for drinks and to cheer on those brave or skilled enough to rise to the competition.

Two years ago, I spent their after-party in deep conversation with a semi-retired senior executive in the private club’s nearly empty bar—missing the bowling competition entirely. Our chat ranged from the existential, to the humanitarian, to the metaphysical and later, when I left the club, gentle, powdery snowflakes were catching the light and whitening the world which felt dazzling and bright and full of promise.

After they cancelled their party last year, I’m happy for its return this year.

And then, at another radio group, one where I’ve settled for several years, the company holiday party was like a familiar Christmas sweater. Sometimes loud and colorful, other times subdued and tasteful, it was always at a restaurant or hotel ballroom; whichever establishment was trading for free commercial time on the stations that year.

Various venues included a pseudo-Italian eatery; a restaurant with a sublime hilltop view overlooking a nearby town; several years in a row at a cozy, small town pub with a superb reputation and a five-star chef; and one year, too many employees showing up in a cramped, crowded room with a fireplace on a huge video screen.

There was the year when a blizzard arrived the same day the party was scheduled, and the company used a “telephone chain” to make sure everyone knew not to venture out on a dangerous night. Unfortunately, one employee was overlooked and as the gusts of wind whipped through and the snow fell fast and hard, he was the only one who showed up to find the restaurant closed and deserted. He quit less than three months later.

And then there was the year of the three holiday parties on a single day.

Party #1 was a catered afternoon lunch at our radio studios and offices. The occasion was our move to a brand-new facility and some sort of acknowledgement from the local business community. I was the one on the air and kicked the event off live over the airwaves. The food was impressive and—yes—there was champagne and other wines and beers—but we had a full afternoon of work so nearly everyone behaved judiciously.

That evening, by an unfortunate error in scheduling, the annual company holiday party was booked at a hotel ballroom. Party #2. Some employees and senior management had been enjoying the remnants of Party #1 a bit late into the day, and it didn’t take long for the open bar to work its magic. I recall several lively speeches by those who don’t normally command such attention. But hand a radio veteran a wireless mic and wait for the fun to begin. The speeches got more numerous and humorous as the evening wore on.

Most of those in attendance, including me, weren’t aware of Party #3. But no sooner had most of the Party #2 attendees retrieved their coats and headed out into a cold evening, than the service people began setting up for the third affair.

I didn’t linger because I wasn’t one of the exclusive guests with an invite. Piecing it together the next day, I learned that a certain group of VIPs had made up the guest list of this party-held-in-secret. There was more food. And of course, more alcohol. It explained why one person’s spouse was said to be nursing a gigantic headache the next morning while her husband shut himself in his office and played the same reggae song fifteen times in a row.

This year, though some events have returned, not every workplace is holding a holiday party for its employees. There is still some worry, still some concern about health and safety.

But if ever there was a time when we need to gather together and celebrate each other, it’s now.

We’ve been forcibly separated by illness and the worry over getting ill for too long. We have been ravaged by fear and sadness and isolation. We need each other.

The best employers understand this. They possess an innate knowledge of how a corporate workplace thrives on the interconnected humming of its workers. A gathering at this special time of year fosters good will, deepens and enriches relationships, and forms an encouraging bond that will see us working together more productively and happily in the future.

It’s a tradition I guess I’ve come to appreciate only because of its absence over the past year. I’m glad it’s coming back.