Merry and Bright

Imagine, if you will, a glamorous Christmas party. The kind that a multi-million dollar corporation would hold for its employees. Suits and ties, cocktail dresses, yummy drinks, fancy food and dancing. Now let me paint you a picture of my work Christmas party on Friday. Cheap Mexican restaurant, middle age men in mismatched suits and ties, girls in their early twenties with too-tall heels and too-short dresses, and let's not forget...public humiliation. The Men's Product Development Christmas party would make a nice episode of the Office.

Let me give you a brief recap of the festivities. First, we got to guess our Secret Santas and open our final presents. I guessed mine correctly and unfortunately the person I had guessed me because I'm not as sneaky as I like to think I am. Everyone who guessed correctly was in the running for...one free day off. So ten of us girls had to stand in front of the entire resaurant and answer Christmas trivia questions until we were narrowed down to 5 people, myself included. Then our cruel boss made us sing Silent Night in front of 30 coworkers and various other Las Palmas patrons. Now this contest had nothing to do with ability...it was all about performance and wow factor and in case you didn't know - wow factor is my middle name. I had props and hand gestures and pretty much just yelled the song as loud as possible. Now that I think about it, I should have just busted out into the "Sisters" routine from White Christmas and thrown everyone off but I wasn't thinking that quickly. Anyway, audience applause gauged the best two performances and fittingly, the 2 remaining contestants were Moona and myself. So what better way to decide the winner for a free day off then a dance-off between 2 coworkers/neighbors/friends? Needless to say, public humiliation does not phase me when I'm competing for another vacation day...so of course, I won by shaking what Santa gave me. Woohoo! This experience has taught me 3 things:

1. I have no shame. I would rather drop it like it's hot in front of the people I work with everyday as well as an entire restaurant than risk losing a free day off.
2. I feel as though there might be something inappropriate about the VP of Menswear asking 2 young girls to dance for their prize. That obviously didn't bother us though (see number 1).
3. I need a film crew following me at all times just so that people will actually believe these stories.

Speaking of Christmas parties, I went to some nice ones on Saturday, these were less humiliating and somewhat fancier. I saw all kinds of people and all kinds of outfits, some very nice and some very wrong, and it made me think that there should be rules given when dressing for this type of party. Let's discuss some do's and dont's of Christmas party attire:

DO dress up. I don't know why I have to keep reminding people that dressing up is fun. You don't have to wear a tux or a ball gown, but you could at least put on a clean shirt. Jeans at a Christmas party are questionable...unless the invitation says casual.

DO dress festively. Festiveness can be portrayed best by color. For some reason, men don't like to wear red but red means Christmas. Put on a red tie or sweater or something. Christmas ties are ok...especially if they are mostly covered by a vest or sweater.

DON'T go overboard with the festiveness. Christmas tie? Ok. Red dress? Ok. Christmas sweater with santa's face on it? Not so much. Jewelry made out of jingle bells? Not so much.

DON'T give it all away. Christmas is in December and December is typically a cold month. When you walk into a party with a halter cleavage-baring dress, there is no one there who doesn't think your stupid...and cold.

Happy Christmas!