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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We will end today's show on a lighter note, or sometimes it's not a lighter note, but we think it's a lighter note usually. Your calls on office holiday parties, as it is, of course, that time of year. We just had ours at WNYC earlier this week. We thought we would ask you about yours, those from this year or those from the past, because here's the question. We want to know what makes a good office holiday party. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

What makes a good office holiday party in your experience? I'm sure a lot of you roll your eyes when you get that save the date from HR. Office parties can be a complicated social situation to navigate. Sometimes the middle of the workday, it can feel like forced fun, cutting into those deadlines you need to hit before you can actually clock out. After work events, well, dynamics get tricky there, too, in other ways, like if there's alcohol being served.

I think a lot of people have stories. You don't have to share those. What makes for a good office holiday party? 212-433-WNYC. Tell us a story about how an office party went well at this time of year, 212-433-9692. Maybe some of the other listeners who work at places where they could send your ideas up the chain might benefit from it, or people working in management or HR directly. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

It can even be just one little good item from a holiday party, like was there good food? Did you have a good venue? Was there company swag that you actually wanted to have? Was there a fun activity? Here at WNYC, we usually have a raffle. We have a band consisting of some of our very talented colleagues. We always have a lot of talented colleagues who do music as well as other things. At our place, there was karaoke, can be fun. Maybe your company does something unique.

Somebody suggested, "Oh, I heard that a company might be doing a bowling holiday party." Did your company come up with any kind of venue or activity that made it unique? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, on individual good items from company holiday parties, or what made an overall good experience and good vibe at your office holiday party? If you want to contrast with something that didn't go so well, you could do that, too. 212-433-WNYC, call or text, 212-433-9692. We'll take your holiday party success stories right after this.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now, to your company holiday party success stories. Scott in Montclair, right out of the box, might have the best one based on my screener. Scott, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Scott: Hi, Brian, thanks for taking my call. I manage a health club in midtown Manhattan. Obviously, being in the fitness business, we have a lot of staff that are in terrific shape. What we did was we took over a sports bar for the evening. They have a chin-up bar. We did a hang contest, and it really engaged everybody. We timed how long they could stay up, and it's amazing. Not necessarily the 25-year-old-personal-trainer-in-amazing-shape one.

[laughter]

Scott: Literally, our 60-plus-year-old massage supervisor took one of the top spots. Anyway, everyone was cheering everybody on. It was just a lot of fun. It built the engagement and just made the whole night kind of fun on top of, of course, all the standard food and beverage.

Brian Lehrer: That's really fun, Scott. Thank you very much. I never heard of that one before. The holiday party chin-up contest. Max in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Max.

Max: Hey there. Can you hear me okay?

Brian Lehrer: Yes, you're on.

Max: Great, great, great. Thanks for taking my call. Last year, we had an epic holiday party. We have a pretty small office here in New York. We decided to go to Insa for karaoke and Korean barbecue in Gowanus. This place is fantastic. We booked one hour of karaoke, and then we were meant to eat and call it a night. As we were finishing our dinner, they asked if we wanted to go back in the room. We went back into the room for another five hours.

Brian Lehrer: Woah.

Max: I think this is a great way for people to loosen up with or without drinks. That's a great place to do it. There's also this wonderful place where we've been in the past called Lion's Roar Karaoke in East Williamsburg, where this great couple run it as a private event in their ground-floor apartment in their apartment building. They host it. They're great singers. They've got a wonderful way of introducing every song as it comes up, make you feel really at home. You can run it however kind of a party you want, bring in food, costumes, et cetera.

Brian Lehrer: You like the karaoke parties. I will say if many of you went back for another five hours, you must actually like each other at that company. What was the best karaoke song, or one really good one?

Max: Oh, man, what do we do? Oh, gosh. It's got to be an ABBA song, as it always is.

Brian Lehrer: [laughs] Max, thank you very much. Katrina in Maplewood, you're on WNYC. Hi, Katrina.

Katrina: Hi, Brian. I work at the International Rescue Committee, where our CEO, David Miliband, I think, has been on your show, as well as some of our other leaders. We're a global humanitarian aid organization.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, he was just here this week. David Miliband. Go ahead.

Katrina: Oh, yes. Oh, great, yes. We don't have a lot of discretionary money. We're [unintelligible 00:06:37] in the middle of Manhattan. We had our party at the office at 5:00 PM yesterday. It ended at 7:00. We had drinks. We had food. We had desserts. We had inspirational messages from our leaders, and our other leaders were present, but it was lighthearted. We had ugly sweater contests and a photographer, but it was inexpensive. Our facilities people did an amazing job. It was over at 7:00 PM, and everybody could go home.

Brian Lehrer: [laughs]

Katrina: There was no drama, no craziness. We just had a good time and goodbye and happy holidays.

Brian Lehrer: Is it a challenge for you at the International Rescue Committee in general to have a fun holiday party? Because what you do is you deal with the most heartbreaking and, worse than that, most miserable humanitarian conditions in the worst places on Earth.

Katrina: It's not a challenge because we're all in it together. This is one time in the year when we can look at each other. Frankly, we do it a lot, but this is really one time in the year where, at least in our headquarters office, we can look at each other and say, "We tried our best. We did our best." Obviously, this year was really a challenge, but it's a time to just say, "We did our best. Good job," and we carry on into the next year. It's a bit of a time for reflection as well as a time for honoring all the people all around the globe who are doing this good work.

Brian Lehrer: Nicely put, Katrina. Thank you very much. Keep it up at the IRC. Here's a text, "New York City College of Technology at CUNY party catered by our hospitality department and held in the dining room lab." I hope there were no lab leaks. "Delicious food, lovely venue served by fabulous students." Karen in Morristown, you're on WNYC. Hi, Karen.

Karen: Hi, Brian. I have to say that I can really relate to Katrina. First of all, I am 69 years old. In terms of my life, I've gone to a lot of Christmas parties. In the last 20 months, I volunteered with an organization in New Jersey called Share My Meals, which is a meal recovery program. By virtue, again, of much like Katrina was saying, this is a nonprofit. The Christmas party that was held on Monday night was held in the chief development officer's home. We all brought food. We had a cookie exchange.

All day, we had a retreat reflecting on this past year. We had icebreakers and games throughout the day that manifested themselves in the evening, when we then played Family Feud based on American food. Since so many on this team are international, the responses to what the favorite food at a state fair would be resulted in some of the most hysterical responses from people in Europe, where I thought, "No, it's not a steak fair. It is a state fair," but we will all go to state fairs from now on.

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Brian Lehrer: Did your European colleagues know about corn dogs?

Karen: Oh, my gosh, no. That's where everyone in the room [chuckles] on both sides who is from America were going, "Corn dogs, fried Oreos."

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Brian Lehrer: There you go. Karen, thank you very much. We'll close with a couple of texts. Listener writes, "Best holiday event. Cooking lesson for about 30 people, made pasta with brown butter sauce and cannolis for dessert." Another one digs into the past, says, "New York Magazine, in the glory days of magazines, used to rent the Rockefeller Center skating rink and restaurant for their holiday parties. Skating, eating, drinking, it was the best."

Thanks for your positive company holiday party success stories. Maybe some other company folks got inspired for next year. That's The Brian Lehrer Show for today, produced by Mary Croak, Lisa Allison, Amina Srna, Carl Boisrond, and Esperanza Rosenbaum. Plus, Sasha Linden Cohen today, and Zach Gottehrer-Cohen, who produces our Daily Politics podcast. Juliana Fonda and Milton Ruiz at the audio controls. I'm Brian Lehrer. Stay tuned for All Of It.

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