Not really looking forward to ours.
Black tie do somewhere pretty fancy, probably organised early in the year, before some hefty losses in our bit of the group and in other parts too. Results of the redundancy consultation, (58 people at risk, 40-odd going) announced on Monday, fancy Christmas do on the Wednesday. :-/ I know my boss has gone already.
I know how you feel, 2008 was the same for us, after 10 years of making billions a year, lots of arrogant back-slapping and “spend what you like at Christmas for the party” we all got the good news a few days before the do.
Frankly it can go either way, in other offices they had a huge party with a “might as well make the most of it” attitude, but ours started badly and went downhill quickly – I thought I’d be in trouble to starting a splinter group and leaving before desert and going clubbing with the people I was mates with, but it turned out the best thing to do when things turned very bitter and people had to be pulled apart.