Should I cancel the Christmas party?

[Youngatheart00]

About 40 of us are due to get together next Friday night.

Other departments are cancelling their parties but we’ve had no official guidance.

I am really torn about what to do - any advice?!

So glad now that ours was last weekend. No Covid cases as a result but I asked everyone (100 people) to do an lft. I think if tonight it would have gone ahead but likely been less well attended.

Had my work Christmas party on the 3rd- now I have covid

Oh no @roseapothecary I hope you’re ok. This is what really worried me especially as Friday is only a week from Christmas

No we haven’t paid the venue in full - this would mean using the whole budget the company have given us. However we have all paid £10 per head and that’s been forfeited.

I know it's now after the fact but if you all work together how is eatubg a meal together increasing your risk? I get it for people who have wfh or can SD at work but I'm a teacher, we're mostly just rubbing along as normal so I really hope ours isn't cancelled. It's a private venue, we spend 8 hours a day around each other mostly not masked, plus kids of course. Just wondering on what basis it would be 'unsafe' to go ahead with ours.

Get people to test say before and on that morning. Let people opt out if they wish to and those who want to party, go for it!

I think a meal together is more of a risk because people drink too much, get closer to one another than they would at work and generally spend considerably longer in close proximity to one another than they would in the office.

IME when people agree to go to these Christmas parties months in advance a huge number of them wish they hadn’t by the time the day arrives anyway, and that’s during normal times, so there will probably be loads of people happy that they’ve had a legitimate reason not to go this year.

My DP’s Christmas party is next week. He’s on holiday with me this week and his colleagues have been putting pressure on him to go. Bearing in mind that I live 120 miles away so going would involve travelling up by train, spending the night up there and then back again. He already said no, but now I think that going would have been stupid and we would have fallen out about it.

It’s IMO irresponsible to still be having mass parties so close to Christmas, and isn’t fair on the people who aren’t having parties who might be prevented from seeing loved ones because they felt obliged to go.

There's a huge stigma at the moment about wanting to enjoy your life . You are seen as " good" if you martyr yourself and become as miserable as possible, and naughty for wanting to see other people and be happy.
Don't fall into that trap OP , I hope your festivities go ahead , time to live our lives now .

I’d go but I don’t have major travel plans or big plans for Xmas. I think if I did then I’d stay away probably.
I think either gauge opinion or go ahead but accept numbers might be smaller