company Christmas parties

Our Christmas party is tonight. Steve only wants to go so he can tell his coworkers about it. He's hoping for good stories, I know he is. Skip was sitting across the desk from me cleaning his fingernails with a paperclip. He looked up and without even the hint of a smile said, "Gotta clean the blood out before the party, it upsets some people when they're eating." It dawned on me that he sits there often, cleaning his nails. It also dawned on me that even though no one wants to go to this party, they all are getting pretty excited about it. I don't even know what i'm wearing yet, guess i should have given it some thought, especially since the owner's wife was a Nordstrom buyer before she came to the funeral home. Skip says we have to go cuz the owner takes it personally if anyone doesn't attend. He said you don't get your ham if you don't go. He was laughing, but he said it's true, they won't give you any gift at all if you don't go. Small companies, grr. The part i'm looking least forward to is the gift exchange. It's where you take some stupide gift and then everyone picks from under the tree or else they take someone's gift who already took from under the tree. I don't want to have to go up to the tree and I don't want to take anyone else's gift. I hate that part. I just don't want to go, period.