How to Plan your Christmas Party the Right Way

It might be the very last thing on your mind when the temperatures are soaring and annual leave requests are coming in thick and fast, but getting a rough plan for the Christmas party in place before the end of summer will mean you’ve got your pick of dates and venues, and you can take advantage of Early Bird offers.

Not every workplace can be expected to set aside a hefty budget for staff parties, particularly those in the public sector. But the last thing our selfless nurses and teachers need is to fork out for their own Christmas ‘do at the most expensive time of the year, when there are plenty of great boozers out there where you can book a space for free.

Veggie, vegan, halal, kosher, gluten-free; make sure you choose somewhere that caters for the whole office. It’s hard to get into the party spirit when there’s no veggie gravy to drown your dinner in, and all the roasties were cooked in beef fat.

Save everyone the bother of having to decipher what ‘smart casual’ means, and just let people wear what they’re comfortable in, whether that’s a glittery Mrs Claus costume or the same jeans they wear four times a week.

Whether it’s showing up to an important client’s mulled wine and cheese night, or staying up til the small hours glue-gunning tinsel onto your kid’s angel costume for the school nativity, schedules can get pretty crowded once December rolls around. Kicking off the Christmas do in the afternoon should mean that most of the office can attend for at least some of it, whatever carol services, Hannukah gatherings or panto trips they might have to rush off to later on.

From company-wide Secret Santas where loads of people inevitably end up having to buy gifts for people they barely know, to enforced inter-departmental mingling over a round of shuffleboard, organised fun can be a real vibe-killer. Sure, it’s nice for there to be a few voluntary activities for the competitive extroverts, but making small talk with Derek from Accounts while trudging around a crazy golf course isn’t everyone’s idea of a good time. Sorry Derek!

A completely open bar might be beyond your budget (and might be a bit of a hazard anyway!) but Christmas is a time for generosity, and that should at the very least extend to a couple of rounds on the company’s dime.

It might be stating the obvious, but most people are either travelling to see family or simply too busy figuring out how to fit a 7kg turkey in the fridge or making multiple last-minute trips into town for more wrapping paper to spare any of their precious evenings in the immediate run-up to the big day.

If you’ve ever rolled in at 5am after falling asleep on the night bus and waking up at the end of the line twice in one night (reader: it happened to me) then you’ll know the importance of a speedy commute home after a few too many sherries.

If there’s one weekday of the year when employees should be allowed to nurse their hangover from the relative peace of their own home, it’s the day after the office Christmas party. Only Ebenezer Scrooge himself would argue otherwise.