So, for the first time in 13 years, I attended the office holiday party and was reminded why I haven't attended for so long.
I was looking forward to shrimp cocktail and dark chocolate covered strawberries. Neither appeared on the menu.
I don't drink, and it was easy to have seltzer with lemon. Also, due to this fact, I was a designated driver. Note: my passenger was significantly hammered! We were staying an hour--we stayed 4, and I was ready to go in an hour...she was not.
The cheese/cracker tray, I almost avoided entirely except that I tried a piece of cooked crab cucumber sushi. It smelled, literally, like dirt. Tasted like dirt as well and I found a napkin and moved myself to an area were I could, unnoticed, spit it out and toss it. For those of you who enjoy sushi; sorry. I can't eat the raw stuff (liver issues--which is why I don't drink or take tylenol either). To get the dirt taste out of my mouth, I had 1 cracker and 1 very small piece of cheese. I don't even know what kind of cheese it was; something mild.
There was an array of grilled veggies, and I had those. There was very fishy smelling salmon in franchais sauce which I avoided due to the sauce and aroma. Other people avoided it for the same reasons. I had 10 pieces of penne in vodka sauce; again, a disappointment, but if it was delicious I would have had more, so I guess this worked in my favor.
I passed over the fried calamari and took 1 small piece of eggplant rolatini. It, too, was merely ok. There was what looked like flax seed breaded chicken sitting atop rice with vegetables and some bok choy. I had a small piece with a spoon of rice and a lot of the bok choy.
I bypassed the carving station that offered turkey, roast beef, stuffing (weird) and gravy. I rounded back to the cheese tray and next to it was fresh mozzarella and tomato, and I had 2 slices of each, and some green grapes. There was a tiny bit of penne with pesto--and I didn't eat that. There was a tray of lox and cream cheese--again, people thought that was weird--I had none.
That is pretty much what the food choices were, so basically, I ate a lot of vegetables. AND, they didn't even offer a green salad. Odd, right? On the one hand, the choices forced me to make healthy choices, but even the healthy choices were just so-so, and I'm reminded why I don't attend this party. I won't be attending next year, for sure.
Dessert was assorted cakes that were cut into 1 inch cubes, 2 chocolate frosting pinwheel logs with very little cake in them, and an ice cream table with toppings of gummy bears, licorice bits, M&Ms, whipped cream, and I don't even know what else. Really, the choices were crap, except for a tray of fruit, and I avoided all of it but had a cup of coffee with a dollap of whipped cream in it.
I had a conversation with one of the firm's partners who is also one of the firm's "biggest losers" who agreed that the food was awful, even the healthy choices were lacking, and we both commented on how the desserts, while disastrous choices, WEREN'T EVEN APPETIZING and how we both were looking forward to chocolate covered strawberries that never materialized.
The worst part about the food is that this was held in a prestigious club, and it looked/felt more like a rented hall with brought in foods--like nothing at all had been prepared at the venue. Clearly, when they set up the ice cream bar, they had large tubs of locally manufactured ice cream scooping directly from them...no attempt was even made to transfer the ice cream to something lovely...just these frosted over cardboard tubs. There was nothing elegant about this.
I left the party hungry. I didn't eat when I got home, however. My daughter was in bed, my husband was asleep on the couch, I took the dog out and rather than wake everyone I went to bed as well.
surviving the office holiday party
I think its hilarious that I got a formal invitation in my inbox the other day, lol. 
