A Christmas party on a Thursday night in November.

Rock, rock on?

I know… it’s a little odd. But it works — and now I have at least one more night free in December to procrastinate about shopping! Woo!

I’ll give you some of the details in the form of bullet points, because I’m nothing if not utilitarian (lazy):

• 100+ people
• Mardi Gras theme
• Turkey dinner, cocktails, dancing, “gambling” — no actual money, just chips to turn in for prize draw tickets

Lots of people brought beads and masks for the theme, but I’m totally terrified of masks in general (and clowns) and I really liked my earrings and my ring (which you can see in my post from last night/this morning) too much to sully them with orange plastic as a final accessory.

And I know y’all want to see my dress. I talked a lot about the dress. But sadly? I cannot show you any photos that were taken of me in the dress — though many exist — because my mother would WEEP at me putting that much boob on the internet.

Did I mention the garment is a tad cleavage-y? And while The Judy did indeed MAKE the dress, I don’t know if she realized that a) it shows up slightly differently on film; and b) hormone therapy has… erm… increased my… assets. Which were already doing just fine.

Seriously. I’m not kidding. When I uploaded the pictures from my camera last night, I was slightly startled.

Anyhow.

Dinner was pretty good — a wee bit dry, but aren’t catered dinners always a wee bit dry? — and everyone seemed to have a lot of fun. The “gambling” cracked me up — all I played was roulette and blackjack, and sadly, I ended up with only few chips and no prizes at the end of the night.

That’s fine, though… it was prize enough to hear my fellow writer call the roulette guy a “crazy gypsy man, stealing my money!” (or something like that)

(And, by the way, he loved it… a table full of sparkly girls throwing chips at him and laughing like freaks at everything he said? That’s gold. I asked him if he was having fun, and he said, “I like your dress.”)

(DO YOU SEE WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT HERE?)

The night ended with everyone going fairly nuts on the dance floor, which is always my favourite part of every office celebration here. My office? Knows how to get DOWN. We worked it to everything from “You Shook Me All Night Long” to “Dancing Queen” (which my director made me go request as our last song of the night.)

And I forgot how crazy it is to see people you work with every day fairly… intoxicated. And super cheerful. And ardently chatty. And affectionate, too! I think I got hugs from people last night that I’ve never spoken to before.

The photos are pretty damn funny, too. But I’ve been forbidden from posting them. For the sake of public decency (and other peoples’ boobs.)

I returned home without becoming intoxicated — seriously? I’m ridiculous enough without it — but had possibly the most terrifyingly fast cab ride EVER. Did he think the meter would ring up a higher fare if he managed to break the sound barrier?

Then, I managed to walk into a door frame in my home — again, not intoxicated, I could do this in the middle of an afternoon with a glass of milk in my system and HAVE — and then discover later (when I went to wash my face in the bathroom) that there was blood all over my face and chest.

Merry Christmas, nose.

And Merry Christmas, office.

You guys are fun.

BONUS: Here is my lovely fellow writer Johanna in her “mask” from last night, as applied by her lovely friend Derek:

Startled, but cute.