My husband’s company has an Events Organiser who is always at the centre of any planning required for corporate celebrations. Having recently won an award, it was decided that a party should be thrown and fancy dress was the order of the day.
I am accustomed to this – the last company Christmas party required employees to come as famous people. Sure enough, almost everyone from Ghandi to Kermit the Frog was there and even those who claimed to hate dressing up had made some sort of effort.
Without a doubt, it adds to any celebration, providing everyone with a common conversation point and normally, a large degree of hilarity. The costumes selected often throw new light onto an individual’s personality normally kept hidden. Fetishes are hinted at, fantasies are alluded to, favourite characters are discovered and all these can create a greater bond between employees on a lasting basis. After all, we all like a little escapism from time to time.
The theme for this latest event was ‘Back to School’. This seemed to me to be a pretty tame topic – mostly an opportunity for the girls to wear short skirts and suspenders, aka St Trinians. However, there was the added fun-factor of having to provide photos of each employee as a child and then trying to link each adult with their respective youthful picture. Now this was more like it! Who would have thought it would be so tricky to pair the two up? I even struggled to believe the photo my in-laws sent over was really my husband as a 7 year old. It looked nothing like him! Nor did it resemble either of my sons. Were they sure that was really him?
So, after a trip to the local supermarket to pick up a cheap white shirt to rip up, drag through the mud, scribble on, drop ketchup down and generally make to look appropriate for a teenage boy to be wearing, along with a pair of grey shorts doctored in a similar fashion, we were getting close to having a fancy dress costume. A Prefect’s Badge borrowed from a friend’s daughter, along with an old Rugby Club tie and cap, scuffed-up trainers, greying socks (that were meant to be white), a catapult, a conker and a bit of Bluetack covered in fluff and we were done.
Off he went to pretend to be a child once more, only this time, it would be a child that drank!