Highlights of the Office Christmas Party

I am seated next to a woman in her late 40's, wife of one of our senior businessmen. Early in our conversation, she tells me that she has a 5-year-old son. He's brilliant - does math at a sixth-grade level. He can subtract fractions. But he's very demanding. She repeats to me several times that she feels she no longer has her own life, and tells me that I've definitely made the right decision not to have children. The first course comes and we break off the conversation. Later, when she turns to talk to me again, she brings up this same topic. And again later, and once more after that. She keeps telling me how much she loves her son, but if only she'd known, she might not have had him. I listen and nod sympathetically, but what can you really say to that?

On the other side of my husband is the date of one of our clerical workers. Early in the evening he makes a show of tasting the wine. His tasting face: lips pushed out, eyes rolled back. It's so dramatic and silly that I laugh, thinking he's clowning around. He's not. I ask him if he's a wine connoisseur. He replies that he's a "connoisseur" in a general way, and then adds straight up that he's a snob. OK, good to know.

The Connoisseur is also a DJ. The DJ who's in charge of our party is killing him with random song segues. He has every possible kind of music on iTunes, from 1930's jazz all the way through to modern hip-hop, and it seems that he's put his system on ultra-random for the evening. Ultra-random is a setting beyond random, which ensures that no two consecutive songs will have any relation to each other whatsoever. As "Jingle Bell Rock" leads into "Sexual Healing", the Connoisseur mimes digging out his right eye with his fork.

Dinner is served. As usual at this venue, the food is excellent. It's surf'n'turf: steamed veggies, roasted potatoes, and steak topped with a pair of jumbo shrimp. As you'd expect at a Portuguese restaurant, the shrimp are perfectly cooked. Absolutely tender. Not at all rubbery. Six out of the eight people seated at our table declare that shrimp are sea bugs and therefore disgusting. If I had a bigger appetite, I could've eaten a lot of extra shrimp.

Despite the crappy DJ, music is music, and after dinner there's a good crowd on the dance floor. That's what I love best about our Christmas parties. People really get out there and shake a tailfeather. Couples in their 60's get up and do ballroom dancing moves to hip-hop songs, as long as the tempo works. Girls in their 20's dance to 1950's rock'n'roll without complaining. Most people aren't worried about looking cool, and they're not falling-down-drunk either. It's a lot of good-spirited fun. The businessman whose wife I was sitting next to at dinner dances next to me and sings along with "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun".

It's 12:30 am before we know it. My husband and I prepare to leave. The place is emptying out, but there's still a handful of dancers on the floor, and small groups of people enjoying the platters of seafood that were brought out at 11 pm. My heart is racing from the unusual exercise of dancing for two solid hours so late at night. Traffic is light and we're home within 20 minutes. It takes me extra time to get off all the fancy party makeup. Then I fall into bed and sleep like a log.