Why my company’s holiday party kicks your company’s holiday party’s ass…unless you had someone like the Flaming Lips play at your party in which case I retract my claim.

Seriously, I am absolutely NOT the guy who goes to company functions. I like the people I work with and even enjoy spending time with them outside of the office, but forced jaunts of “fun” usually feel pretty flat for me. So it was no wonder that I viewed this year’s holiday party, my first since I was out of town last year at this time, with a bit of trepidation. Also Photogal tends to frown at me furiously drinking at these sorts of events in an effort to “loosen up” and “integrate” more fully.

I needn’t have worried at all. The party included, but was certainly not limited to, the following events:

• A kick-ass steak dinner was served (Photogal had the fish) and even though our wine was late due to a painfully old server that Photogal really thought should be at home knitting things for grandkids there were two other bars that were open the whole time.
  
• Our water glasses had little ice cubes that light up when they came in contact with water. This was way cooler than I’m making it sound.
  
• Hula dancing and a dude who did a fire dance. This was thrilling if vaguely upsetting due to certain of the male dancer’s, um, attributes slipping out of the extremely small strip of cloth covering his, um, attributes. The ladies loved this though.
  
• I loved watching one of the guys I work with put a flower in his hair, don a grass skirt and dance with with wife. He rules.
  
• Air hockey!
  
• Also, Ms Pacman, Galaga, basketball, foosball and a number of other arcade games revealed when the walls on either side of the dining room opened up to reveal hidden rooms behind them.
  
• On the other side was an area filled with freshly baked cookies, chocolate fountains, all kinds of sweets and some guys making personal ice cream sundaes for everyone.
  
• A monkey! To pet and hold and feed! (He really liked strawberries covered in white yogurt.)
  
• Personal massages and manicures. I hadn’t had a massage of any sort for about five or six years so that was REALLY nice.
  - Cash prizes! I only won twenty bucks that was stapled to a rose but, heck, Photogal got the rose and I walked out with twenty bucks I didn’t have when I walked in!
  
• Did I mention the monkey? Yes!
  
• We had party crashers. Another company was having their own party across the hall and, next to ours, it was pretty sad. The plus was that their company seemed to be filled with hot twenty-something females so I certainly didn’t mind them sneaking in. A couple of the other attendees did not share my view and as one of my co-workers was over heard saying, “I told that little bitch to get out of our party before I kicked her ass.” Okay, fair enough.

Most importantly, even though there was LOTS of free booze flowing I was having such a great time I didn’t even drink that much. I also learned that when it comes to the dance floor, a great number of my co-workers are fearless about shaking their thing and I really respect that. I might have even danced too if I hadn’t been so worried that my, um, over energetic style might have put someone’s eye out or something.

Yes, my company holiday party pretty much completely rocked. How was yours?