Xmas Xtravaganza

So, our departmental Xmas party was at Tatton Park this year, miles away from anywhere in deepest, darkest Cheshire and when I heard it was to take place in a marquee, I didn't think it was going to be a good party. How wrong I was - despite it all starting wrong with me driving up and down the M56 like a lunatic looking for the hotel junction, this was probably one of the best Christmas parties I've ever been to!

The theme of the party was The Magic of the Orient, so various ladies dressed in oriental type-gear, both guests and organisers alike. The majority of other females (including us) were in posh frocks and the guys were looking well smart in black-tie.

Once you got inside the marquee, the place just seemed like a huge dark room, toilets (which everyone was expecting to be of the grim portaloo variety) were sparkling and proper, casino tables, loads of bars and hundreds of tables.

There was entertainment, singing and dancing, mostly with an oriental flavour, eg a few songs from 'Miss Saigon', bizarrely a lot of Take That cover versions and a very flexible guy in a gold outfit doing lots of high kicks and bendy-moves...
There were twelve of us in our party and everyone had a right laugh. One of the girls was in danger of ruining things as she was already blind drunk before she even left the hotel but after a few litres of water, she seemed fine later on in the night, so no vomit-horror stories, although the sight of her trying to eat her Christmas dinner with one hand (her left hand seemed incapable of moving in her drunkenness!) was rather amusing!

The dancefloor was packed all night, so I didn't get to boogie much. Mind you, my feet were killing me - just not able to wear strappy high heels for long periods of time!

After the party ended around 1.30am, we piled into one the girls' hotel room in our pyjamas and had a few more drinks there. All I remember is laughing so much at office gossip / confessions / revelations that I totally lost my voice by the end of the night! Don't think we got back to our own room until around 3.30am and I just crashed out on the sofa bed.

Next morning, we emerged zombie-like at 11am ish and just about made it for a nice greasy fry up. Not sure if I felt better or worse after eating..

A great night out - we'll have to book the next one very soon to get in the same place! What a scream!