Today I thought I would tell you about a Christmas themed story about one of the most random office christmas parties I have ever been to. We were told that there was going to be a party for this year at one of the local pubs and you paid about twenty pound or just under for the food etc. I was sort of looking forward to it – i am not the biggest fan of office christmas parties but i really liked the people i was working with so i knew it would be fun.

When the night of the party came the office booked taxis for us to get to the said location as it was cold and dark and it was a bit of a walk to the other side of the town. Two taxis left at the same time, the one that I was in the driver had heard about lots of traffic so decided to go a scenic route as it would get us there quicker. The other taxi were not so lucky as their driver hadn’t heard the news and went the normal route. Whilst it took us about 40 minutes to get to the location instead of the normal 5 – 10 minutes it took the other taxi nearly two hours because of the crazy traffic – we should of taken this as a sign of things to come.

When we got to the pub we were told to go upstairs to the back room – when we entered it was rammed with people, a lot of tables and a lot of chairs. This room was very small but we found a seat and settled in. It was then time to grab food from the food buffet — we went up to the table which was meant to be full of lots of Christmas treats and instead was full of rock solid stuffing (you couldnt even bite through it) and cold burnt roast potatoes. This was not because we were late, THIS WAS the said Christmas Extraganza buffet. Me and my fellow colleague looked at each other laughed, felt miserable at the sight in front of us – took a couple of cold burnt potatoes and went back to our seat.

Now, this buffet I should state was for people who could eat anything – that didnt have any allergies or werent vegetarian (although i would like to point out that the food on offer was vegetarian), this meant that they had food prepared for them. My work colleague and I sat down at a table with one of our friends who was a vegetarian and a bar man came up to him with a plate of foood. The food was a hot bowl of curry with rice galore and every single side you can think of – I think this is the first time I have been truly jealous of not being a vegetarian. We both looked at him so jealous and desperate for even a taste.

In the end we decided watching him eat was too much and we decided to go off and just drink wine instead. The rest of the party lived up to the same level of the food – we tried to play pool and the table was really wonky and had balls missing, the quiz that was put on by a different team then normal took it too seriously and made it more University Challenge then something fun and Christmassy and the drinks were expensive.

It was fun to spend time with my colleagues outside work but my word the rest of it was awful and i think thats why people bonded even more.