Making Merry

I do not make merry myself at Christmas, and I cannot afford to make idle people merry.

-- Ebenezer Scrooge

My office holiday party is today.

The command came down from Corporate: Office holiday parties this year were to be held as a luncheon during office hours (no evening events), and include employees only (no spouses or children). The per-head budget was slashed to about half what it was last year. They made this announcement in mid-November, mind you. It's a good thing we hadn't pre-booked the same space we'd used last year for our party.

The usual coordinator guy was out of the office, so the boss asked me to look into it. Call around to some catering places, get some menus and prices, set it up. So I called around, and consulted with the boss to get a feel for what he wanted (#1 on his list: "Support local businesses. No chain places.") and eventually chose Doraldo's, a local Italian restaurant that we've worked with before.

The season's been slow for the caterers, too. Despite my doing all this work only a week before the luncheon, everyone had the day open. The guy at Doraldo's was grateful for the business: he knocked off the delivery charge, threw in the sodas for free, and rounded the remaining cost down by a chunk. Then, "You like wine?" he asked.

"It's an office function, no alcohol allowed," I said.

"No, for you. To take home," he pressed.

Apparently I'm getting a kickback, now. Unfortunately, I don't drink wine. But I told him okay -- I can always re-gift it, or save it for the book club meeting at our house in January.