What makes a good office party?
December 4, 2009 10:58 AM Subscribe
What makes a good office party?
I'm in charge of throwing the holiday party for our group. They're great people and everyone gets along, but it's sometimes hard to get people to leave their desks, so we're going to do it in the office. This will also work out very well for our budget. I've suggested a Friday at 3pm so people can start their weekend early.
I don't think people will mind staying in the office, because when we've traveled in the past it seems a little inconvenient for everyone insofar as getting people rides, parking, and/or getting folks back to Metro. We went bowling last year and I think it fell a little flat.
There are probably going to be 20 people there or so, and that includes significant others who can make it. I have a budget of about $200. I'll get decent food and beverages and I think we're going to make a spiked cider or something fun. I can do the cheesy decorations and lights or whatever, and find some holiday music. (Is the Peanut's Christmas album appropriate?) We're also doing a Santa's Junkyard type-thing, where people are to bring something valued under $10.
It's going to be a modest event, but I have some time on my hands to plan and these people deserve a decent holiday party. What else can I do/bring/buy/provide to make sure people have a good time? Have you been to an office party that wasn't lame? How'd they do it?
I'm in charge of throwing the holiday party for our group. They're great people and everyone gets along, but it's sometimes hard to get people to leave their desks, so we're going to do it in the office. This will also work out very well for our budget. I've suggested a Friday at 3pm so people can start their weekend early.
I don't think people will mind staying in the office, because when we've traveled in the past it seems a little inconvenient for everyone insofar as getting people rides, parking, and/or getting folks back to Metro. We went bowling last year and I think it fell a little flat.
There are probably going to be 20 people there or so, and that includes significant others who can make it. I have a budget of about $200. I'll get decent food and beverages and I think we're going to make a spiked cider or something fun. I can do the cheesy decorations and lights or whatever, and find some holiday music. (Is the Peanut's Christmas album appropriate?) We're also doing a Santa's Junkyard type-thing, where people are to bring something valued under $10.
It's going to be a modest event, but I have some time on my hands to plan and these people deserve a decent holiday party. What else can I do/bring/buy/provide to make sure people have a good time? Have you been to an office party that wasn't lame? How'd they do it?
When you say spiked cider, does spiked = booze? What is your policy on booze?
What is your office like? I attended one that was a sort of casino night setup, which was fun, though I don't know how holidays-ey it is.
posted by craven_morhead at 11:04 AM on December 4, 2009
What is your office like? I attended one that was a sort of casino night setup, which was fun, though I don't know how holidays-ey it is.
posted by craven_morhead at 11:04 AM on December 4, 2009
Our office party is always in the office and works out really well. One thing that makes a difference is the lighting. Someone brings a bunch of floor lamps and table lamps from home and we turn off all the fluorescents. Gets rid of a lot of the office vibe!
posted by emilyw at 11:07 AM on December 4, 2009 [3 favorites]
posted by emilyw at 11:07 AM on December 4, 2009 [3 favorites]
Response by poster: To clarify about the booze: There's going to be a little bit of booze provided. It's okay with the bosses and it hasn't presented a problem in the past. No one drinks much.
posted by juliplease at 11:09 AM on December 4, 2009
posted by juliplease at 11:09 AM on December 4, 2009
Have something to do. What makes an office party deadly is just standing around trying to find something to talk about. Yankee Swap/Secret Santa/Dirty Santa/White Elephant or whatever they call it in your neck of the woods is one way to get around that, but really any kind of challenge, game, or activity would be great.
Personally I'm a fan of trivia - maybe divide into cross-dept. teams and do holiday song or movie trivia, name that tune, etc.
posted by Miko at 11:18 AM on December 4, 2009
Personally I'm a fan of trivia - maybe divide into cross-dept. teams and do holiday song or movie trivia, name that tune, etc.
posted by Miko at 11:18 AM on December 4, 2009
My suggestion would be lose the Peanut's Christmas music. Shoot for something just slightly past the comfort zone for the average attendee. A little bit of a groove in the background goes a long way in getting people to loosen up and have a relaxed good time.
posted by Babblesort at 11:20 AM on December 4, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by Babblesort at 11:20 AM on December 4, 2009 [1 favorite]
The fluorescent-ditching is brilliant. That's definitely what makes it "feel" like work.
If you have to leave one on, find a black light fluorescent tube. :)
posted by rokusan at 11:31 AM on December 4, 2009
If you have to leave one on, find a black light fluorescent tube. :)
posted by rokusan at 11:31 AM on December 4, 2009
Are your people the type that would do games? Here are some things we've done before at office parties:
Christmas trivia quizzes - This is a hard one, but there are others out there. You could do it as a standup Q&A style with a DJ, or print out a sheet of all the questions and put the group into teams and give a prize for the team with the most correct answers.
You could do charades with Christmas song titles. Or Karaoke. It's fun with the novelty songs - assign teams to perform together if you want.
Do you know the game Guesstures or Outburst or Scattergories - I have all those games at home and I made up cards that had questions specific to Chrstmas. Let me know if you want details of any of those.
At one event, we asked everyone to email a copy of their baby photo. Posted them up on a wall and had a guessing contest. I don't remember if that was for Christmas or not; if it was, I think the theme may have had something to do with Santa visiting these little children, who are they now.
We had a projector set up with a slide show of team photos from the past year - the summer softball game, the Halloween party, etc. It was good for some conversation starters.
Of course, a lot of folks would rather just go home 2 hours early on a Friday
posted by CathyG at 11:31 AM on December 4, 2009
Christmas trivia quizzes - This is a hard one, but there are others out there. You could do it as a standup Q&A style with a DJ, or print out a sheet of all the questions and put the group into teams and give a prize for the team with the most correct answers.
You could do charades with Christmas song titles. Or Karaoke. It's fun with the novelty songs - assign teams to perform together if you want.
Do you know the game Guesstures or Outburst or Scattergories - I have all those games at home and I made up cards that had questions specific to Chrstmas. Let me know if you want details of any of those.
At one event, we asked everyone to email a copy of their baby photo. Posted them up on a wall and had a guessing contest. I don't remember if that was for Christmas or not; if it was, I think the theme may have had something to do with Santa visiting these little children, who are they now.
We had a projector set up with a slide show of team photos from the past year - the summer softball game, the Halloween party, etc. It was good for some conversation starters.
Of course, a lot of folks would rather just go home 2 hours early on a Friday
posted by CathyG at 11:31 AM on December 4, 2009
Low limit gambling is always fun. Maybe you could get a roulette wheel.
Also lotteries with supplied prizes and enough to everybody wins one.
Hire a magician.
Karaoke, if you have enough booze to make it intteresting.
posted by charlesminus at 11:53 AM on December 4, 2009
Also lotteries with supplied prizes and enough to everybody wins one.
Hire a magician.
Karaoke, if you have enough booze to make it intteresting.
posted by charlesminus at 11:53 AM on December 4, 2009
At one event, we asked everyone to email a copy of their baby photo. Posted them up on a wall and had a guessing contest. I don't remember if that was for Christmas or not; if it was, I think the theme may have had something to do with Santa visiting these little children, who are they now.
Along this same vein...years ago I went to an office party where ahead of time everyone had to turn in some random fact about themself, preferably something no one knew about. Then at the party everyone was given a piece of paper listing all the facts collected, but without names, and you had to try and guess which person they corresponded with. It was a lot of fun and a great way to get to know your coworkers. Even better if there is a prize for who gets the most correct.
posted by cottonswab at 12:06 PM on December 4, 2009
Along this same vein...years ago I went to an office party where ahead of time everyone had to turn in some random fact about themself, preferably something no one knew about. Then at the party everyone was given a piece of paper listing all the facts collected, but without names, and you had to try and guess which person they corresponded with. It was a lot of fun and a great way to get to know your coworkers. Even better if there is a prize for who gets the most correct.
posted by cottonswab at 12:06 PM on December 4, 2009
I would suggest a different day of the week. If I'm not working in the office on a Friday at 3 p.m., then I don't want to even be in the office, no matter how great my coworkers are!
Also, a post-party party suggestion is nice have at the ready. If everybody is still having a good time around 4:30, circulate a "spontaneous" option to meet up at a local watering hole/dinner place after business hours. That way if a certain group is having a good time, it can continue gracefully.
posted by quarterframer at 12:25 PM on December 4, 2009 [2 favorites]
Also, a post-party party suggestion is nice have at the ready. If everybody is still having a good time around 4:30, circulate a "spontaneous" option to meet up at a local watering hole/dinner place after business hours. That way if a certain group is having a good time, it can continue gracefully.
posted by quarterframer at 12:25 PM on December 4, 2009 [2 favorites]
Along the lines of Secret Santa, my office used to do a gift exchange where we drew names and bought the present as if the recipient was a kid. So the executive-types would often get things like Monopoly, designer-types would get art kits/crayons, and if you knew the person beyond their job role, gifts really got creative. We would then donate the toys. It was a lot of fun and people really enjoyed it. Add some nibblies and drinks and it made for a really fun afternoon.
Another year, we had a gingerbread house building contest. Teams got together to build from a prefab kit, but were allowed to use any extras they wanted. Votes were cast and there were prizes and bragging rights. The creativity was astounding and the potluck was the biggest one I've ever seen at an office.
posted by melissa at 12:39 PM on December 4, 2009 [3 favorites]
Another year, we had a gingerbread house building contest. Teams got together to build from a prefab kit, but were allowed to use any extras they wanted. Votes were cast and there were prizes and bragging rights. The creativity was astounding and the potluck was the biggest one I've ever seen at an office.
posted by melissa at 12:39 PM on December 4, 2009 [3 favorites]
I like the gingerbread house building contest a lot, makes me want to get started on one tonight.
posted by lizbunny at 12:47 PM on December 4, 2009
posted by lizbunny at 12:47 PM on December 4, 2009
nthing the "Lose the Charlie Brown Music" thought. Its lovely, but kind of mellow.
What you want is some Mad Men style tunes: Hark the Herald Angels Swing, Ella Fitzgerald, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Ertha Kitt, Perry Como, etc.
You don't have to spend money on this - just set up a pandora.com radio station and ask it to look for songs "like" the traditional xmas hits from these artists and pandora will do the rest.
posted by anastasiav at 12:48 PM on December 4, 2009
What you want is some Mad Men style tunes: Hark the Herald Angels Swing, Ella Fitzgerald, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Ertha Kitt, Perry Como, etc.
You don't have to spend money on this - just set up a pandora.com radio station and ask it to look for songs "like" the traditional xmas hits from these artists and pandora will do the rest.
posted by anastasiav at 12:48 PM on December 4, 2009
We had a killer office party every year which centered around everyone buying cheap/cheesy/funny gifts we wrapped very nicely, then drawing numbers. Number one picked the first gift and opened it. Number two had option of stealing one's gift (in which case number one opened another present) or opening an unwrapped present . . . and so on. At the end we voted on categories: "Best Tacky present" "Best Christmas Tacky present" "Best Kwanzaa Tacky present" etc.
I have fond memories of bobble head Santas, singing Christmas trees, terrible ties, and other such junk, which we always kept on display (sometimes until we could wrap for next holiday party.) I still have my Santa hats, including my red baseball cap with trailing white pom poms.
posted by bearwife at 1:06 PM on December 4, 2009
I have fond memories of bobble head Santas, singing Christmas trees, terrible ties, and other such junk, which we always kept on display (sometimes until we could wrap for next holiday party.) I still have my Santa hats, including my red baseball cap with trailing white pom poms.
posted by bearwife at 1:06 PM on December 4, 2009
Let me join emilyw and rokusan in encouraging you to turn the fluorescents off and bring desk lamps and floor lamps (with incandescent bulbs). You may find those for quite cheap at second-hand stores. I can't emphasize this enough. Also, bring some pleasantly colored tablecloths for the light to reflect off of. Nice lighting will completely transform the environment!
posted by Anything at 1:24 PM on December 4, 2009
posted by Anything at 1:24 PM on December 4, 2009
Have you ever done a baby photo game at the office? Everyone brings in their baby pictures and you put them on a board and have people guess who is who. We did one earlier this year and it was a blast. You could encourage everyone to bring pictures of them from the holidays (and we all have pix of us opening presents or in a Christmas pageant).
posted by radioamy at 1:56 PM on December 4, 2009 [2 favorites]
posted by radioamy at 1:56 PM on December 4, 2009 [2 favorites]
Beer pong (perhaps cider) with fake gambling could get people into the spirit of things.
posted by bprater at 2:30 PM on December 4, 2009
posted by bprater at 2:30 PM on December 4, 2009
I think you should bring it forward in time to late lunch time so that people can have a good time and still leave early for the day. Three o'clock isn't really going to let them to go home very early. It would be more appreciated than most things.
Do you have christmas crackers/bon bons in your country? They're very cheesy but cheap and lots of fun. And the silly hats and ridiculous jokes are fabulously naff. (Make sure you get the ones with little knicknacks in them, the ones with only the hat and the joke are boring.)
posted by taff at 3:40 PM on December 4, 2009
Do you have christmas crackers/bon bons in your country? They're very cheesy but cheap and lots of fun. And the silly hats and ridiculous jokes are fabulously naff. (Make sure you get the ones with little knicknacks in them, the ones with only the hat and the joke are boring.)
posted by taff at 3:40 PM on December 4, 2009
Data point: I really kind of hate office parties. If you want to give me something pleasant, give me some TIME OFF.
However, if you must do the party thing:
Do it during work hours and let people go home early.
Some people in your office may not really want to do the whole par-tay thing with their co-workers. Let them drop by for a cup of punch and then leave gracefully. Don't pressure them to wear a silly hat or participate in general hilarity. You know the "looks like someone has a case of the Mondays" lady from Office Space? Don't be that lady.
Have good food and comfortable places to eat it.
posted by oblique red at 8:22 AM on December 7, 2009
However, if you must do the party thing:
Do it during work hours and let people go home early.
Some people in your office may not really want to do the whole par-tay thing with their co-workers. Let them drop by for a cup of punch and then leave gracefully. Don't pressure them to wear a silly hat or participate in general hilarity. You know the "looks like someone has a case of the Mondays" lady from Office Space? Don't be that lady.
Have good food and comfortable places to eat it.
posted by oblique red at 8:22 AM on December 7, 2009
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All closet doors should have those little do-not-disturb hangers from hotel rooms.
Seriously, funniest office party thing I have ever seen.
posted by rokusan at 11:02 AM on December 4, 2009 [1 favorite]