It’s been a hard pressing year of arduous work, long hours, and endless meetings. So when the Christmas staff party comes around, and your colleagues have all agreed to let loose in the office for the evening, you know it’s a recipe for (potentially) drunken disaster. 

Here’s 11 ways to survive the party without unwittingly ending up as the office’s next interesting talking point (until the New Year’s Eve party anyway). 

1. Locate adequate hydration ahead of time

The key to surviving the night lies with good old H2O. Find it. Hoard it.  Keep drinking it. Even if it means your annoyingly minuscule bladder and the office toilet become BFFs for the night.

2. All the nibbles

Whether it’s finger food, or an entire NYB pizza, a good stomach lining will not only help you last longer, but will also help stave off the bone-crushingly disastrous nausea you’ll have to deal with the next day. 

3. Navigating the alcohol

Now that you’ve stocked up on your mini-pastizzi and are carrying enough water to fill a small paddle pool, you may begin to peruse the slew of alcohol. 

Do try the mulled wine.
Do enjoy a beer with your workmates.
Don’t have 7 consecutive shots of spiced Jaegermeister. 

4. To dance or not to dance

If you somehow managed to win big at the genetics jackpot and have both a high tolerance for alcohol and excellent dance moves, then by all means: dance away to the Claudette Pace being blasted across the office foyer.

In the more likely case that you are not in possession of one or both of the above coveted traits, consider your options. You could assume your usual uncomfortable bobbing-on-the-spot routine, safe in the knowledge that you have remained relatively sober. Or, you go hard on the wine, gyrate in ways your hips have never quite shaken before, and wonder how many Instagram stories you’ve been plastered across the next morning. 

5. Beer pong for beginners

There may or may not be drinking games at your staff party. If not, brilliant! Defer back to point 3. 

Otherwise, assuming you’ve downed a few glasses of wine, you may want to steer clear of the beer pong. And Never Have I Ever. And Ring of Fire. 

6. Identify the bathroom ahead of time

Whether its for your fourth piss of the night, or because you’re about to hurl despite your (mediocre) efforts at festive sobriety, knowing where all the bathrooms in the office are located will definitely save you a few embarrassing flashbacks. These may or may not include getting a little too friendly with the office dustbin, and having to hold back your colleague’s hair between tequila shots. 

7. The next day fear-factor

Unlike the massive NYE party you’ll be attending in a few days’ time, you’ll have to face everyone you work with the morning after your staff party, in all your disastrous drunken glory and the barrage of rum-induced shenanigans that followed. 

8. Designate a somewhat sober DJ

Even the drunkest person three games of beer pong into the night will have some understanding of how overplayed Despacito is, was, and forever will be. And in your wine-ridden fuming, it certainly doesn’t help to have every other person change the song just as you’ve reached the bridge. 

#whydidyoustopthesong

9. Avoid your boss

Between the silent resentment at your working hours, and your inflated confidence thanks in no small part to that third glass of wine you sloppily poured yourself, it’s pretty safe to say you’re in no fit state to string together a sentence in front of or directed at your boss. 

10. Have a taxi-service on speed dial

In the highly likely event that you end up, as the Maltese phrase eloquently puts it, stikker mal-art, have the decency to know you cannot and should not drive, and have a taxi take you home. 

11. If all else fails: Gaviscon

Sadly, not sponsored. Amid the waves of nausea, regret and cringe attacks from the night before, Gaviscon is the tiniest sliver of a silver lining in a very, very mediocre life after your disastrous performance at the Christmas Staff Party. 

Don’t say we didn’t warn you. Tag a colleague!

READ NEXT: All The Things You Can Do On Christmas Eve In Malta

Matthew Baldacchino

Self-titled resident SJW and expressionless in-house Head of Internal Marketing. Matt loves prepping vegan and vegetarian food, consumes way too much coffee, and has an unhealthy penchant for storyboarded Instagram Stories. When he's not trying to figure out social media policies, marketing strategies or cracking SEO conundrums, you can catch him as the host of Basically, Livestream Of Consciousness or Lovin Daily. Hit him up if you've got a story about the environment, arts and culture, health, politics and activism, or LGBTQI+ issues. He's also a doctor, but we don't talk about that.