Jonola14

RENAULT CHRISTMAS PARTY

Friday night saw the Christmas Party for the Renault UK Service and Quality Department. The theme was ‘Gangsters and Molls or Christmas Accessory’ and it was to be held at the Ramada Jarvis Hotel in Watford, which, handily, is less than ten minutes walk from my house.

As I walked into the hotel foyer, I got a few stares from employess and was then shown the double doors behind which our departmental festivities had begun. I turned the handle and the entire department turned to look who it was. There was a cheer and a ripple of laughter, before cries of ‘it’s Robin Hood’ came my way. I wasn’t Robin Hood, nor was I Peter Pan, nor a pixie, nor an alien. I was an elf. A green one too. I had a green hat, a green one-piece tunic that showed a lot of elf leg, and black shoes wrapped in red and green Christmas paper.

Soon the elf jokes started - “cor, to wear that you must have some real elf confidence”; “you walked here in the cold? Surely that’s bad for your elf?”; “don’t finish the wine you elfish git”; “hey, Robin” etc.

The gangsters were very good indeed - there were lots of black shirt/white tie combinations, toy guns, a pimp and a tree fairy.

The low point of the night was being propositioned by a bulky Scottish man in the gents, who had clearly misinterpreted my tunic for a skirt (or perhaps a kilt). My protestations at him calling me his “little Pixie” went unnoticed and in the end I fled, telling him to “regain your elf-control”.

The high point was either winning a prize for ‘most daring outfit’ and courtseying in front of everyone, or wandering off to another companies party, gatecrashing and being ejected. I just couldn’t understand it - I was just stood there, swaying from side to side in time with the music, taking momentary pauses to gulp at my pint, and they suddenly asked (told) me to leave. “How did they know?” I asked myself. I then realised that I was standing next to the pimp and I was dressed as an elf in a fancy-dress-free party.

And then I walked home, as a rather drunken elf, to the toots and beeps of the A41 traffic.