One time at the office Christmas Party...

[Jolly]

Post the craziest or most bizarre thing you've ever done or witnessed at an office Christmas Party...

[George K]

The university never had "Office Christmas Parties" in the traditional sense. There were a couple of dinners that the anesthesia department had at a local restaurant.

After I got to the smaller place where I ended up Christmas parties were no longer held in the recovery room. Sadly, I missed them.

They ended up moving to a local hotel's banquet room. After one nurse stripped to her underwear and jumped into the pool, those parties also ended.

No, I didn't attend that one, again, sadly.

[LuFins Dad]

I have never been to an office Christmas party.

[Jolly]

@lufins-dad said in One time at the office Christmas Party...:

I have never been to an office Christmas party.

You're kidding me.

[George K]

@lufins-dad said in One time at the office Christmas Party...:

I have never been to an office Christmas party.

Other than the university departmental Christmas dinners I described (which would hardly be called a "party") neither have I.

[LuFins Dad]

@jolly said in One time at the office Christmas Party...:

@lufins-dad said in One time at the office Christmas Party...:

I have never been to an office Christmas party.

You're kidding me.

Nope.

[Aqua Letifer]

For Christmas break one year, I squatted with my co-workers at the bakery we all worked for. Owner lived four states away, the manager was my best friend, we all got along. We hauled Fred's 84-inch TV into the place, replaced the soda in the coca-cola fridge with beer, and hooked up a modded XBOX to the TV. For a couple of weeks we showered in the kitchen sink, ate the company product on the regular, swapped food with other restaurants when we got sick of that, and got shitfaced playing MarioKart and watching Studio Ghibli movies.

Some outtakes I remember:

---

Guy comes busting into the front door "Where's Fred?!"
Fred: "Who?"
"Fred! Where the fuck is he?"
Fred: "We have no idea who you're talking about."
"Well when Fred comes back, you tell him I'm going to come back and I'm going to stab him!"
Fred: "We will relay your message."

---

Cop knocks on the door
"Yeah?"
"Look... my partner and I park across the street every night when the bars let out, and we can see you all through your front windows..."
"Yeah?"
"What are you doing in there?"
(Briefly explain that we work there, and what we're doing to 'maintain the place over the break.')
"That's... that's awesome."
"Want to come in?"
"DO NOT ask me to do that, I do not want to know what the fuck is also going on in there."

---

We had a series of car crashes in front of our place during that time: ice and a blind hill, mostly. When we heard the crunch of metal, we'd pull out some baked goods and go out to see if anybody wanted any. "Sorry about your car, there, guy. Want a brownie?" Community service, sort of.

---

I pick up a call about four blocks away in my car. Julian called me.
"Hey, you coming back with the food?"
"Yeah, but I'm going to be delayed. The, uh, street is on fire."
"Like, the pavement?"
"No, just every building beside it."
"Gotcha. Well the guy came back to stab Fred."
"Did he?"
"Didn't have a knife."
"He never has a knife."
"Yeah. Hey, mind if we walk up to meet you? We're kinda hungry down here."
"Fuck it, I'm just going to abandon my car at this point. I'll be right over."

---

All of us were sitting on the two couches we repurposed from some dumpsters, the lights in the whole place slowly phasing on and off like Christmas lights but really it was just terrible wiring.

Julian was standing, telling some story when this huge Latino guy hauls every kind of ass toward us, out of the darkness. He's got a plastic bag full of some kinda shit, an Arizona tea can in his hand and he. Is. BOOKING it.

He doesn't go for our door after crossing the street, though. Doesn't even make to turn right or left on the sidewalk. Just barrels toward us.

THUMP!

SMEARS himself into our front window with a thud that shakes the whole place. Glass rattles on every shelf, a couch gets bumped, the lights flicker. His huge gut is now spreading the liquid chalk sign we had made on the window, announcing our closure for the holiday season. His face is turned sideways now, also being smeared into the liquid chalk.

Then we see the cop behind him, shoving his ass into the window and pulling his hands back.

Like a caught salmon, the guy stares with one wild, stricken eye at the rest of us inside.

Julian walks over to the window. Gets out his phone like he's going to call somebody. Holds his phone way out, to within an inch of the window. And takes photos of the guy as he's getting handcuffed.

It was about the funniest fucking thing I've ever seen in my life.

[Doctor Phibes]

I don't think I can compete with Aqua, but anyway...

I can't remember much about most of the Christmas parties in England. We used to start drinking at 11am, then we'd go for a massive slap-up meal, and then continue drinking until we passed out.

One I do remember - we went to a nice Italian restaurant after the main party. Me and a couple of friends sat at one table, the hoity-toity senior management from down-South sat at an adjacent one. I decided it would be a good idea to stand up and sing 'War' by Edwin Starr at the top of my voice, until after about 2 minutes I was quite forcibly restrained. I don't think it helped my career much.

Another one, I ended up imitating a coxless pair with the receptionist in the middle of the quite swanky restaurant. Nobody really seemed to care.

Fairly tame stuff, on the whole. I haven't been to a decent Christmas party since I came over. It's all a bit corporate nowadays.

[Mik]

I can't top Aqua either.

Actually, I can't top anyone. I think I've only been to one office party and that a rather sedate affair.

Although there used to be a fundraiser called the World's Largest Office Party at the Hyatt every year. Local celebs were the bartenders.

Unbeknownst to me they poured with a very heavy hand and I was drinking liquor that night. As you know liquor sneaks up on you and I ended up so drunk I could not find my way out of the hotel.

[LuFins Dad]

Oh, now if we are going to talk about work conferences…

[Jolly]

I can't top Aqua, but we had that most wild of all beasts - Medical Residents.

Many of them, especially the HO 1's, lived in a dump owned by the state, affectionally called The Hilton by all. They were known for some quite boisterous parties, but one Christmas Eve they outdid themselves.

I dropped by when I got off at 11P, just long enough to say hello and sample the jungle juice, since the lab had donated two gallons of 95% ethanol for the garbage can. At that point, they were already having a great time, having cleared off the parking lot for a dance floor and barbecue.

They'd had the wheelchair races before I got there, but I still got to see the end of the gurney drag races. Literally...docs in drag, pushing a gurney down the boulevard with one very obviously pregnant (basketball) OR nurse on each team, riding in the gurney.

I missed the best parts, or so they tell me. They built a campfire in the middle of the boulevard. A mannequin was stolen sometime during the evening and used in drunken festivities of unknown significance. They caught one of the nurses in the bathroom fellating one of the surgery residents. It finally broke up, when one of the female nurses took off all of her clothes and streaked by the front of the hospital. Didn't help that the woman was in her fifties, overweight and with some definite gravity problems.

I knew they must have had a good time, because when I doubled back that morning at 0630, there was a naked mannequin on the hospital boulevard, wearing a silver tinsel halo.

I'll never forget the announcement Christmas morning on the hospital intercom... This is Doctor ___. I'm the only physican in the hospital right now and I will be indisposed for the next five minutes. Please, nobody get sick while I'm gone.

I was told the "Come to Jesus" meeting with the Chief of Staff and Administrator was epic.