Top 10 Ways to Survive The Christmas Party
During the Roman age, citizens and subjects would take part in a festival of such ferocious drunkenness, such sexual licentiousness and such moral degradation that people were assumed to have gone temporarily insane. This bacchanalian frenzy could last up to a week during which, according to the records, ‘whoever would not submit to defilement, or shrank from violating others, was sacrificed as a victim.’
That’s right! The Christmas Party actually appears to pre-date Jesus. Someone call a scribe! Of course, it is just about possible to avoid being sacrificed as a victim at your seasonal do; it just takes balls of steel, the speed of a ninja and the cunning of a fox. So let’s get those jangling black-clad fox balls rolling
1. Don’t Sit Next To Your Boss
What are you, deranged? This is the very person you’ve been trying to hide your festering drink problem from for the last seventeen months. Now is not the time to get ‘tiddly’ with the person who pays your rent. No. If you must sit down at your Christmas Party (and, for any bosses reading this, there is nothing wrong with letting people stand up – or even sit outside in their taxis, for that matter) then make sure you are well out of sight, hearing and smell of the big cheese. If seating plan dictates that you must share elbow space with the boss then for the love of mince pies make sure you top up their glass every time they look the other way. After all, the only good boss is a shitfaced boss.
2. Wear very complicated underwear
Whether you’re a bra and knickers sort of person, or a greying Y front kind of candidate – and I wish to ascribe no gender to either choice by the way. What lies beneath is your business – make sure that on the night of your Christmas party you jettison your ‘good’ underwear for something fiendishly difficult to get off. I’m talking steel-reinforced control pants, buckles, belts, straps, buttons, double stitched seams and maybe even a set of thermals. Because, whatever happens, you do not want to be without your wonderpants at any point during the proceedings. Whether it’s photocopying or copping off, the Christmas party is never the time to let loose.
3. Eat something
We’ve all been to them – the Christmas parties where the only thing to eat is a crumpled stack of mimeograph paper and some abandoned tic tacs. Well, not this year kids. This year, food is your friend. While the recession has no doubt dented the festive drinks fund, we can all stretch to a salty snack before the hard liquor starts to flow. Not only will this soak up the worst of the wet stuff swilling about your insides, it will also give you something to vomit other than your own lung when the night is over.
4. Ask for a promotion
Well, why not? The only thing anyone is going to remember the next day is that moment when Sue from accounts sang the entire Fresh Prince of Bel Air rap to a dusty yucca plant and Tony from Estates tried to teach the CEO the Harlem Shuffle in the toilets. So, you might as well practise your promotions speech in front of the face you will one day have to convince. Just consider their flapping visage a sort of visual aid, and try not to get distracted when they start dribbling.
5. Turn your phone off
Modern communication is a wonderful thing. Until you’re three units shy of total liver failure and you’re reading through confidential work emails and text messages from your latest fling. No calls. No texts. No messages. No joke.
6. Write the name of your partner on your hand, their phone number on your arm and your address on your stomach
Well, best not to leave these things to chance, eh? Not only will the stomach tattoo come in useful when you’re slumped over in a taxi, but the name and number up your arm will trick you in to thinking you’ve had an exciting romantic liaison without the risk of actually cheating. If you’re single, then try writing your mother’s maiden name and the number of a local takeaway.
7. No games from the waist down
As much fun as passing a balloon from sweaty, static crotch to sweaty, static crotch sounds, you’re probably best off saving it for a slightly more suitable party. Like, say, a funeral. The day you go bumper to bumper with a colleague is almost certainly the last day you can convincingly challenge them about an approaching deadline or budget overspend. Of course, we all know that word games can be as boring as Hades, but better yawning than poking, if you know what I mean.
8. Make friends
This is a party after all. And if those friends happen to have a hip flask and the direct line to a prominent recruitment consultant then all the better. Just don’t say anything along the lines of ‘you’re my best friend’ or, worse, ‘I always thought you were a bit stuck up/smelly/old/thick but you’re actually a laugh!’ The Christmas party is never a time for honesty, sober or otherwise.
9. Have a get out plan
I am honestly starting to wonder suspect that people only have children in order to get out of awkward social events. A babysitter really is the Swiss passport out of the occupied territory that is the Christmas do. Simply drop a mention of a baby-sitter studying for their GCSEs and you will be met with approving, responsible smiles, allowing you free to saunter straight out and in to the sweet golden sunshine of your local lock in.
10. What happens at the Christmas party, stays at the Christmas party
Posterity can go swivel, honestly can kiss my grits and reality can eat my shorts. What happened never happened, what you heard was never said and you didn’t see me, right?