Erin Lawless - The One with the White Wedding

The broad space of the function room was lit at low-level only, but the white, silver and blue colour theme served to brighten the area. It felt more like a wedding than an office Christmas party, each round, white-clothed table sporting huge centre-pieces – oversized martini glasses filled with prickly sprigs of holly and soft, fat plumes of white feathers. Glitter-dipped laser-cut snowflakes in shades of gleaming silver, snow white and ice blue hung from the high ceiling, like something out of Frozen . Bright strands of silver lametta draped from the branches of a distastefully large real Christmas tree taking up one entire corner of the room. The standard rust-coloured hard-wearing carpeting detracted from, but didn’t ruin, the general effect.

Spying a work mate taking an artfully-angled photo of the tree, Cleo made a bee-line over to her.

“You look amazing,” Tia told her, approvingly, aiming an air-kiss in the vicinity of one cheek, then the other (events like this were weird, thought Cleo – it’s not like they greeted one another in the staff room like that). “Have you got a drink?”

“No, not yet. I’m going to pace myself. Don’t want a repeat of last year and all that!” Cleo laughed self-depreciatingly.

Tia raised one expertly-threaded eyebrow. “Well, don’t wait too long. There’s a budget behind that free bar, you know.”

Cleo double-took. “Free bar?”

“Yup. The management board has put an undisclosed sum behind the bar as a little festive bonus. You know, in lieu of us getting paid actual festive bonuses? But when it’s gone, it’s gone,” Tia shrugged, taking a generous gulp from her generously-large glass of white wine.

Cleo glanced behind her – that definitely explained the popularity of the bar area, which was already thronged with people. “Well, in that case,” she laughed. “I wouldn’t want to miss out on my bonus!”

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