h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

We'll be going out for my work Christmas Lunch soon.

I hope you pull a cracker

(what?)

There were no crackers, but we did have a Kriskindle, and I got two Sudoku books.

It was a lovely dinner, and we went to the pub afterwards, so I had rather a lot of beer.

A good afternoon and evening.

I just googled the utterly mystifying phrase "pull a cracker" - it sounds great fun. We don't have this group activity in the US, but we ought to

(I'm saying nothing)

ok - at first I assumed it was just unfamiliar slang - then I found it was a literal description of innocent party fun - now I'm wondering again.

Well, if you look at this

http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/p/pull_a_cracker.asp

I'm not sure it's 'innocent party fun'.

But if you have no crackers, then you have no cracker jokes. After cracker jokes, everything else is funny.

Example of a cracker joke

Why should you never get hungry in a desert?

Because of all the sand-which-is there

It's a cracker

*wonders how to get her crackers this year. Can't take them on planes...*

I'm not going to our works Christmas dinner. I know it's rather frowned upon to skive it, but I shall be in an aeroplane on my way to see my family in England that evening.


What is the general concensus on the protocoll across Europe? Do people go to the office Chrismas do? Do they feel obliged to go? Left out if they don't go?

Mind you, in Germany, it usually takes the form of a dinner at a restaurant with no extra entertainment, no presents, no games or funny hats; if you're lucky the firm pay the food.

28 of us went out to a restaurant. Our company paid for the food and a small amount of drink (€10 worth each). The rest of the drink and the presents we had to provide ourselves. It was a good afternoon / evening.

There's certainly no compulsion on anyone to go to the do, but if you didn't go, you'd have to stay in work, and it would be very lonely in an empty room. Not everybody joined in the Kriskindle present-giving.