The Work Christmas Lunch

Well yesterday saw that annual event, the work Christmas lunch, you know the one, where you get your Secret Santas out for each other and wear a silly paper hat on your head for an hour or two at most!

Unfortunately, we weren't able to make a night of it, mainly due to the fact that we had to come back to work in the afternoon - gutted, but there we go.

Does anyone else find anything as stressful as finding someone's Secret Santa present though?

I mean you draw a name from the hat - you're guaranteed to draw the name that's the hardest person to buy for, and then you agree an amount, it could be a fiver, it could be a tenner, but once agreed people never seem to stick to the value.

The fear of being labelled the 'small spender' then takes over for the next few weeks, as you're convinced other people have spent loads more than you despite this £5/£10 rule, so in the end you probably end up spending over the odds only to find that the person who's bought your present has spent less than you - how does it make you feel?

Do you sit there looking totally unimpressed at the fact that you went to miles more effort than the other, or do you take it in good heart, with the notion that it's better to give than receive?

Bollocks - of course you sit there peed off knowing you could have saved yourself a fiver, and had another couple of drinks with it!

Ah well, at least the meal should be okay, although there is then the countless disputes over who pays what, and whether someone has underpaid, but do you challenge them as it's Christmas, and slip an extra pound in yourself to make up for it, whilst having that underlying feeling of angst, that the person has got away with a pound?

Then the tip, now us Brits don';t have to leave tips, unlike in the US where it's expected - no, over here we get the choice, and once the piles of tenners & twenty pound notes are in one person's posession, then the debate starts, as we have £20 more than we though, do we put it towards the tip, or do we have another round of drinks instead, I know which one I'd prefer.

Whatever the case it's usually practice to save a fiver and get the obligatory box of sweets for the team, and there will normally be a dispute over that too, with some wanting Roses, whilst others show their disappointment in the fact that you didn't get a box of "Celebrations" - but they do it in a coy way, i.e when they're munching on one of the Roses, they mumble something about how they prefer the other variety - well don't friggin eat the Roses then!

Christmas lunches also result in at least one person on the table saying, "Oh I could just go to sleep now" following their lunch, and also one person who sits in the seat where the sun continously shines on their side of their face and end up sitting at the most ridiculous angle when it would just be far easier to pull the curtain over!

I also find you listen in to other work groups having their Christmas lunch too, trying to find out what they're all about, come on we all do it, and for no good reason too!

Then there is always one person who's order comes out wrong - all this despite booking it about 3 weeks earlier, why can they never get it right??

Well that's done for another year anyway, now who's up for booking next year's do?