An office Christmas Party : The ultimate play by play

The best time of the year? Without question, it is Christmas and new year’s. Duh. It's something everybody looks forward to and this time the wait was too pressing; you know why, the pandemic, of course, and Christmas and new year seemed like the only light of hope and joy at the end of the tunnel. Just as everybody was getting ready for their big break, so were we. Few days before Christmas, working on our laptops, constantly discussing code, out of the blue, Leonard had an interesting thought.

He said “Let’s have a Christmas party!”

The very second, there ain’t a single thought in my head except every single cell in my body screaming “heck yeah”. Sounding too desperate? Well, don’t tell me you wouldn’t say yes after being locked up in the house for almost 1 year straight. It was a miracle that we didn’t lose our minds then. Given the chance, you grab it by the horns without a second thought. That’s what we did.

Hence the planning started.

Questions like “where to go?”, “what to wear?”, “good time to have a party?” were the only ones that kept tumbling our guts like clothes in a dryer.

Let’s just say, I could bet against all odds and could possibly manage to wear a “nice enough” dress, the real puzzle is about to go WHERE? WHERE? WHERE? WHERE?  …… yeah, you guessed right, it’s an echo effect (lol). Who am I kidding asking questions? The icrew team is a friggin genius bunch. I knew they’d figure it out. But you know how it always is. Plans kept fluctuating. It was hard to find a good place to have a corporate office party. And after burrowing every nook and corner of the city we found the one!

It was a perfect barbeque joint at the OMR called “Big Barbeque”. I’m telling you this place is LIT.

 It wasn’t too crowded, wasn’t very empty, it was just perfect. Then comes the tail of the plan, right? Saving the date. It wasn’t easy to fix a date coz icrew never takes a break. They work shedding every ounce if energy keeping clients happy all over the world. It was difficult to take time off as they always work around the clock satisfying clients of various time zones. You know what they say, the right time to fix a time comes at the right time. Don’t give me that look, I know they don’t say that but that’s how it was. We fixed the right time and date only at the last minute and after that everything else fell into place. We reserved the largest table at the joint for December 26^th, 7 pm. I was the first one there, sharp at 7 pm, on the dot. I got settled at our table, grabbed a drink from the bar, and looking at the entrance, I waited.

And waited

And waited

And waited. Oh, wait there’s more waiting

And waited.

All there was left to do was either to walk around looking at all the mouth-watering exquisite delicious spread staring into my soul saying “it’s okay. Take a bite. A bite Is all its takes”.  Ahh, the temptation. I could’ve, I would’ve when my heart said yes, my mind kicked me in right in the medulla and whispered a big fat no. The wait was agonizing. 45 mins later, the fashionably late crowd showed up. Blazing ray of hope. I could hear angels singing “Hallelujah”. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t just angels, I even thought I saw the shrimp dancing then. Anyways, we were all there, united under one roof, that’s all that mattered. Do you know what was all worth the wait? Matthew and Saurabh showed up in cute Lil neckties. They looked cute as a button. Leonard, on the other hand, dressed up valiant and dashing.

 There they were, Boys were in it to kill it! Correction; they were men that night, suited up and slayin. It wasn’t just them, we had other guests too. Ananth Pranav, a very close acquaintance, a brainiac when it comes to flutter, the CEO of Ice Cubes, gracefully accepted the invitation and came to the party. Also, what is a party if not with family? My parents came with me to the barbeque joint and had a dinner date for themselves. It was funny how they were trying to not look at me sitting right across the hall. Leonard’s brother Leander and a few of his friends crashed the party. To us, it was more the merrier.

All there’s left to do was rummage the food, which I’ve been dying to do ever since I set foot at the place. I got three words for you; IT. WAS. AMAZING! All the food you can imagine, right from tangy Pani Puri to spiciest biryani to a chocolate fountain that you can never have enough of. We had all sorts of exotic meat too. We toasted to all our ups and downs; all our laughs and cries. This party wasn’t just an escape from reality it was a celebration of all the awesome stuff we created, destroyed, manipulated, and modified. That moment, we raised our glasses to being us and more, I could see smiles across the table; proud ones; the sense of satisfaction to have achieved great things and heartfelt gratitude beaming on their faces. It was the one moment I would never forget. I knew this beginning is going to lead us to bigger destinations.

We ate a very heavy dinner. Appetizers to dessert, it wasn’t just on one table; we ran around the room hunting all delicacies. Honestly, it was way better than sitting in one chair and having to be embarrassed when you accidentally burp. Throughout the dinner, we caught up on stuff we missed the whole year, talking about success acquired all over the globe; US, UK, Barbados, and whatnot, you name it and I can 90% assure you we’ve done projects from there. It probably might seem easy for me to bloat to you now, but I know I appreciate the team for keeping an eye out on all projects around the clock. Being the HR of the company, I remember making crazy announcements like the team must show records of how many hours they sleep at night because I know they don’t. Our team is so dedicated to what they do.

 Hey team, if you’re reading this, listen close up, SHOUT OUT TO YOU GUYS!!! I’m so proud of you all and we’ve got a long way to go. We’ll get to greater heights.

Our tum tums filled, half dozing off, all there’s left to do is take pictures. We gathered in front of the Christmas tree and took one big happy family/ company picture. Full tums + laughter = cherish the day, be proud of your fate and go to bed it's late. So, we bid each other goodbye and went on our way, said to ourselves “until we meet again, another day”