Being the Emcee

We had our work "Holiday" party last week, of course in this era of total political correctness we can't call it a Christmas party in case we offend any of the muslims, jews, non-christians, etc that may work in our building or who may accidentally walk by on the sidewalk.

Our Holiday Party is pretty nice, it's at an offsite restaurant/banquet hall, the food is pretty good and we always have a charity raffle with bunches of cool presents.

This year, a few hours before the party one of my co-workers (who was on the planning committee) asked me if I would co-host with one of the team members, quickly since I knew there'd be a spotlight I said Sure!!!

Well it wasn't until an hour later that I found out that I was going to be the Emcee and that my co-worker was going to be my Vanna and draw raffle tickets out of the barrel and hand them to me.....uh oh, there REALLY was going to be a spotlight.

Well I'd been looking a little shaggy so after work I ran to the Barber Shop and have them give me a once over with their clippers! Then I had to rifle through my closet and find something appropriate to wear! Fortunately I found my velvet jacket from last year and a pair of pants that didn't have a button missing.

We arrived at the party and I had my two cocktails (but had extra tickets since the lady that organized it knew I was working and would probably need a little liquid confidence). Then we were told that we would have to draw all of the raffle tickets DURING Dinner! Which meant that I would have the wonderful opportunity of not being able to sit at my table and enjoy dinner.

Irregardless (as an old boss of mine used to say and would drive me crazy) I had a great time being the Emcee, I had big shoes to fill though. The guy who's been doing it for the last few years is no longer with the company and I knew that everyone was going to compare me to him. I guess if not everyone in the company knew who I was they did after I got finished!

I told my co-host Vanna that she was lucky she hadn't told me earlier, otherwise i would have had my whole Michael Richards act ready to go!

Plus wearing a velvet jacket had a lot of people touching....err petting me! There is a picture of me over on Flickr where I look like a pimp!