25 People Reveal The Wildest Things They Witnessed At The Office Christmas Party

Festive cheer, mistletoe, and Secret Santas are the hallmarks of most office Christmas parties. Employees usually show face, exchange gifts, mingle, network, and then head home, hoping to keep their dignity intact after these mandatory gatherings with colleagues and bosses. Yet we all know that once the music, drinks, and food start flowing freely, people start to relax. And hey, there’s no harm in that becuase a little party never hurt anyone, right? It’s normal to loosen up and have fun, but while the celebratory atmosphere encourages people to be more uninhibited, completely losing control is a disastrous move that can haunt employees for the rest of the year. But once the festivities are in full swing, some guests, unfortunately, forget their surroundings altogether and go wild. Recently, Reddit has been full of stories about the most outrageous things to happen at work Christmas parties. We’ve gathered some of the most entertaining tales packed with salacious details and firsthand accounts that turned otherwise dull functions into full-on dramas of tabloid-worthy scandals and more.

#1

Image source: con-fuzed222, RDNE Stock project Worked for a very large Japanese company. Company party is where I learned that in Japan it is an insult to not get completely wasted when they throw a party. Management that was usually very uptight were completely unhinged. Back to normal on Monday.

#2

Image source: Iamthewalrusforreal, Pablo Merchán Montes Drunk coworker, older guy, steps backwards to get out of the way of dude carrying a tray of drinks. Trips over a table leg, crashes backwards into one of those 80's cubicle movable walls, and the entire 12 or 14 string of wall all comes crashing down with a massive bang. Tables go over, punch bowl hits the floor, glass breaking, dust in the air, food all over the floor....everything stops. And that's when we all saw that our 60+ year old boss had a 21 year old intern bent over a desk behind the wall, railing her for all he was worth. Everybody freezes for a beat, then the boss starts grabbing at his ankles trying to get his britches up. The next thing we hear was the old guy who took the wall out. "I'm alright." Hell, we'd all forgotten about him. Best Christmas party ever. I miss the 80's.

#3

Image source: smosgal, MART PRODUCTION This girl got wasted, accidentally flashed ?, knocked over a table of drinks. Then proceeds to make out outside against the window of the bar where everyone could see with a fellow coworker. She was kinda new, still works there 20 years later, that guy is married to her best friend now. They all work there.

#4

Image source: run_swim_nobike, cottonbro studio Drunk 20-something admin, like stumbling drunk. Creepy 30-something engineer tried to take advantage. Thankfully others noticed and kept her out of trouble. Creepy guy was fired the next week.

#5

Image source: Hereibe, RDNE Stock project Huge company, global, you’ve heard of it, offices in every country basically. Our state had a company Christmas party for the employees in the entire state and everyone from the grunts to the top leaders showed up. One guy and his date were at a table full of just-barely-above-interns and the date was trying to convince the guy to hit the dance floor. She kept assuring him the dance floor was too big for anyone to notice him, he kept saying he was a terrible and embarrassing dancer. She assured him she’d love him no matter how bad he danced and nobody would make fun of him. All the table agreed and kept chanting “dance Jackson! Dance!” While his friends hooted that he must be really terrible if he was fighting this hard. Night goes on, and after a few hours he finally joins his date on the dance floor. The CEO quietly walks behind them and as he’s walking by says “Wow Jackson you really can’t dance”. Never even broke his stride. Anyways turned out well for Jackson because the CEO learned his name from that and watched his work, liked what he saw, and over the next few years he ended up getting promoted to mid level before being poached by another company and now is upper management. He did actually really suck at dancing too.

#6

Image source: BlueMoon2008, QVEVRI TBILISI Me. I’m the wildest thing that ever happened at a company holiday party. I worked the closing shift, so arrived late after all the food and drinks were done. Stone cold sober I hit the dancefloor and soon broke a sweat. I wore a silicone breast prosthetic in my left bra cup due to Poland Syndrome. I glanced down and noticed it was no longer in place and had slid out under my dress and disappeared onto the crowded dancefloor. I swiftly pulled a ninja exit and slipped out of the party. Next business day, coworkers were talking about the dancefloor turning into a slip n slide for some unknown reason, wreaking havoc at the party. No one was seriously injured, but that’s my confession for today.

#7

Image source: DavosLostFingers, Luana Scorsoni I worked at a company in Scotland a few years ago and every year something unexpected happened at them The most mental incident I remember was; one year a woman in her mid 20s hit the free bar before the meal and got really drunk really quickly. She started mouthing off to people sat on her table and swearing at anyone she looked at. Eventually a director of the company came over and asked her to leave, instead she took her shoe off and attacked him with the stiletto heel. She was restrained, the police were called and she spent the night in jail What made the situation even more crazy was it was only her 3rd day at the company. She started on the Monday and the party was on Wednesday. Safe to say she was fired. I'm not sure if she was charged.

#8

Image source: Bacchus_71, Isabella Mendes One of our managers was so incensed that only for the first hour was booze covered by the corporate tab. Beer and wine was covered for the whole party but this Christmas event was for a brewery. Manager was all "I don't want free beer I want booze." Decided that his best move was to load up on booze in the one hour. Double shot after double shot as some form of protest. The protest being that the rule promoted dangerous drinking behavior. He got carted out about 15 minutes after the hour was up. Around 7 PM. Me, the manager was me.

#9

Image source: Adrift715, Alena Darmel My husband was a research scientist for a big pharmaceutical company. Most of his colleagues were PhD level, kind of geeky, serious, bit pudgy, wore glasses. But at the Christas party at a fancy hotel the bar was open. The DJ started playing “Who let the dogs out? These people let loose.

#10

Image source: False-Strawberry-319, Andrej Lišakov Open bar so everybody was wasted. One woman, recently divorced was taking on all comers in the venue's toilets. The Sales exec had white powder all under his nose, and stopped even bothering to go to the bathroom to do a line. Was cutting it up on the table in the middle of the party. The boss's wife was in a smaller room, but by no means private or empty, getting it on with a 20 year old intern. The boss was in another room with a young secretary getting up to much the same. Eventually the boss stumbled upon his wife and they had a stand up screaming match while the intern zipped up and slunk off. Several people smoking cigars in a room and refusing to take them outside. They somehow managed to set the curtains on fire. More than one person passed out, including a lady who was found by the cleaners the next day asleep behind a couch. The venue staff just gave up after a while. Especially as a long termer explained that this was pretty much par for the course, and the only reason we'd booked the venue was because our company was banned from pretty much everywhere else. The bit that stands out, though, is the middle-aged nerdy accountant type who chucked a wobbly about 3:00 in the morning when the staff locked the bars down and refused to serve any more booze. He got so angry that he jumped up on a table, dropped his trousers, and defecated. The table overbalanced half way through and he struggled to get back up because his trousers were knotted around his ankles. Most people were gone or passed out at this point but those of us left just watched and cheered him on. The staff were shouting at him but none of them would go near him because of the dump everwhere. While the staff were busy with that some of us managed to get back into the locked bar and stole a lot of bottles of spirits, and beer, and random bottles of stuff in a big plastic tub and get it into one of the bedrooms where the party continued. Two weeks later, everybody back at work, no-one ever mentioned it again until next December when it was fondly remembered as the year to beat. Good times, folks, good times.

#11

Image source: 123nightmode, Andrej Lišakov University department Christmas party. A tenured male 83 year old professor got tipsy and sat in a 19 year old female intern's lap. After everyone saw him safely swept away in a cab, the grad students set up an impromptu croquet game in the hallway with beer bottles. It was the Slavic department. I played an accordion song that night. It was a time.

#12

Image source: Mtldoggoagogo, Getty Images I’ve posted this story here before, but it’s a good one. One year my law firm hired 3 nearly identical article clerks (basically lawyer interns in their final year of law school). They were all about the same height and build, straight brown hair with bangs, black framed glasses. Nobody could tell them apart for the entire year they were articling with us, even the lawyers they worked directly with. So at the party they all wore very similar dresses. One (or more?) of them got super drunk and screamed at the senior partner about what a jerk he is, then (or was it one of the others?) tried to get everyone to do molly in the bathroom with her, then when HR escorted her (or was it her?) to a cab to get her home, she got in a fight with the cab driver who then refused to drive her and HR had to wait with her for another cab. The next 2 weeks we had so many meetings about it. They did countless interviews with everyone at the party trying to figure out who (singular? plural?) it was, but in the end they couldn’t say for sure. Because it wouldn’t be fair to punish everyone over the actions of one (or 2 or 3?), nothing was ever done. Eventually 2 of them were hired on as lawyers after they passed the bar, and 1 recently made partner. If anyone knows who it really was, the rumour mill is still totally silent.

#13

Image source: PunisherCastle, RDNE Stock project I was a college intern and very naive about the work world. An older co-worker got drunk and told me about everyone in the office he had hooked up with. It opened my eyes to work dynamics.

#14

Image source: Greubel, Amanda Reed Two junior accountants, both quiet types, got into a screaming match over who was the bigger Nickelback fan. It ended with one of them throwing a plate of mini quiches at the other. Security had to separate them. Best party ever.

#15

Image source: sharpblerd, Polina Caught my extremely reserved male colleague taking ridiculously posed selfies in the staircase. Felt like I was interupting something.

#16

Image source: DevonMarx, Anastasiia Dmitrieva Saw a guy get really drunk and do a strip-tease that was all strip and no tease, he is “no longer with the company.”

#17

Image source: Electronic_Feeling13, Ahmet Kurt A drunken colleague telling the company owner, his wife was ugly and then said ‘if I had a nose like yours, I wouldn’t underline it with a mustache’. Never saw him again.

#18

I was a bouncer off & on for about 20 years. I worked in a military town & was oftentimes fighting 3 or 4 times a night. I am a doorman of experience. I’ve had numerous conversations where “normal” people could not believe the amount of aggro we would get on a single night. That being said… The worst single night of my life was when I did an old mate a favour & worked a corporate Christmas Party for him as he was short staffed. It was a 4 hour running battle where there was about 10 police cars & vans turned up- the old bill ran out of handcuffs. And I cannot stress this enough; It was all because about 20 absolute jerks from PC World got coked up & kicked off with a load of Builders & Scaffolders on their Xmas party who were all spread out through the venue. I think the first fight was about 8pm. In the end the coppers just pepper sprayed anything that wouldn’t lie down. Image source: Scott-Cheggs

#19

Image source: ketzcm, Georgy Trofimov Company I used to work for rented out the Queen Mary in Long Beach for a XMAS party. 2 drunk guys jumped off one of the higher decks. The QM staff were not happy!

#20

Image source: RIC_IN_RVA, Getty Images 35 years ago Enterprise rental car Christmas party had ended and weoved upstairs to a suite. two people locked in the bathroom of the executive suite after-party. Loudly being intimate. Not with the people they came with. Rude as hell once the door got unlocked. Got fired on the spot. Enterprise threw some crazy parties.

#21

Image source: CollectingHeads, Maria Lupan C- level exec snatching a wig off of a woman that reported to him and wearing it. The room got really quiet and Monday was awkward.

#22

Image source: Bennington_Booyah, Nappy Saw the best ranked marketing exec get so wasted at the bar, before the actual party even started, that they threw her over a shoulder and carried her out in full view of the entire company. She never returned to work after that. NO ONE could believe that was her!

#23

Image source: timsstuff, Curated Lifestyle Wasn't my work. I was up in Seattle doing some work on a Friday-to-Monday gig (set some things Friday, come back Monday and make sure everything works then fly home) and a friend of mine was living up there so on the weekend we would go out to various bars. On Saturday night it was me, her, and her roommate and we wanted to hit up this place called Tap House Grill, but as we walked in it appeared to be closed for a private event. There was a table with some badges but it was unmanned. Some kind of Christmas Party apparently and we were a little late. So we grabbed some unmarked badges, wrote our first names on them and walked down the stairs, found out that it was a totally open bar and there were appetizers and everything. Turned out it was a Microsoft party. Good news, I happen to be an IT engineer specializing in Microsoft software, certified and everything. So I ordered a Ciroc martini, and when people started talking to us I just told them I was from the LA office. Talked the talk, we were there for several hours and no one suspected a thing. I told the girls to just say they were in Accounting or HR or something. Even had one Indian fellow take our picture, he wanted one with the girls and gave me his internal messaging address to send it to him. Poor guy never got that pic lol. We absolutely destroyed those nerds on the pool table. Awesome night, didn't spend a dime except for the $20 I gave the bartender.

#24

Image source: BG3restart, Getty Images Two of my colleagues were divorced from each other and the woman was dating another guy at work. At the party, the new guy was baiting the ex, so the ex bit the new guy on the face. At the same party, my married-with-three-young-kids boss, whose wife was battling cancer, turned up with an adult worker.

#25

Image source: PowerNinja5000, Kateryna Hliznitsova Sales manager, not wearing underwear, but wearing a dress, dancing. Dance moves included laying on the floor with her legs in the air.