tis the season for holiday parties and eating until you hate yourself, then going for seconds. along with all the festivities come those awkward encounters with your co-workers who wear felt reindeer antlers to work, and ask you your life story as you're eating room-temperature shrimp cocktail at the office party.
it's important to learn some holiday etiquette, which usually means filtering 90% of everything that you are. i've put together a little guide for you on holiday survival, for when you find yourself uncomfortably close to the mistletoe with Ed from accounting who has adult-braces, or for when you have to explain to your distant relatives what your university degree actually got you.
as always, i'm here to help you guys, because during the Christmas season, it's better to give than receive (especially when it comes to gift exchanges - please stop re-gifting me the hand lotion that smells like laundry detergent, i gave this away to you last year for a reason.)
so friends, here unfolds, all my knowledge of surviving the holidays, 2015:
during family dinner, offer to sit at the kids table if the option is available, this way you don't have to deal with sticky questions like "now that you live on your own, how is your cooking going?" - really good aunt Cheryl, i finally figured how to turn the light on in my oven, so i can actually watch what it looks like when i'm burning the shit out of my macaroni casserole.
the added bonus of the very desirable kids table seating arrangement is that your little cousins won't judge how many glasses of wine you drank because they can't count.
at the office, try not to show too much excitement when your co-worker shows you a picture of her bishon shitzu dressed as an elf. she will take that as a social cue to scroll back into the abyss of her iphone photo album to show you 27 pictures of it as a puppy, and share the story of how her childhood dog got hit by a car while playing Frisbee. keep your shit together Karen, your dog looks like a pile of damp laundry, and your stories are giving me a headache.
when you are around family and inevitably asked when you plan on "settling down," curb the conversation to anything and everything else by offering to show grandma how FaceTime works, or telling people that you hope Donald Trump becomes the next president. watch the conversation soar / forks get thrown - it's sort of like magic, except better.
during the office party, classic party tricks are perfectly acceptable and will keep your co-workers laughing all the way into the new year. some ideas include a juggling competition with the rotting fruit from the office fridge, attempting to saber that cheap bottle of sparkling grape juice with the office butter knife, or one of my personal favourites - 100 shots in 100 minutes.
when telling jokes to a crowd of people, they must be tasteful, and exclude anything to do with racism, sexism or any isms that wouldn't actually offend anybody except for the one feminist of the group. something like "what's worse than ants in your pants?" is only acceptable when you trust the person that you tell won't report you for sexual harassment. (the answer is uncles, by the way.)
for holiday attire, avoid wearing anything with bells on it. it's cliché and makes you look like you still wear the diamond collection perfume from shoppers drug mart, and everyone knows that smells like formaldehyde, Debra.
ladies: Christmas is not the time to experiment with that glittered gold eye shadow you got in your stocking last year, it's offensive and makes you look like a child's arts and crafts project that gets hung on an unfortunate fridge. instead, a festive "plum" lipstick is a holiday makeup essential, as it's very trendy for the season and also hides the red-wine-stained-lips you have garnered from the night before.
gentlemen: leave the singing Christmas ties at home. if these were ever actually cool, it was maybe in 1992 when you were a virgin.
and finally, don't trust anyone that buys "light" eggnog. they are assholes and don't know the true meaning of happiness.
so there we have it folks, I hope you take something away from all of this banter. trust all my advice, because my life is the epitome of awkward encounters and i know what is best for you.
until next year friends..
xoxo, the damsel
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