Remembering Long Island's old office holiday season parties

Few things are as iconic in business as the Christmas-season party for the office— it’s an important ritual that celebrates workers and the year’s successes while promoting camaraderie within a company.

There was even a time when these naughty-and-nice gatherings played such a significant role in climbing the corporate ladder that it was considered a snub to your boss and career self-sabotage not to attend.

They've made their way into general popular culture too, through memorable scenes in movies such as “Desk Set,” “On Her Majesty's Secret Service,” “The Apartment,” “Trading Places,” “Die Hard,” “Scrooged,” Bridget Jones' Diary,” “Love Actually,” “Office Space,” and “Office Christmas Party”; and television series including “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Mad Men,” “The Office,” “Seinfeld,” “Arrested Development,” and “Ugly Betty.” 

So, in the spirit of the season we thought we’d take a nostalgic look back at some of those held on Long Island over the years through photographs. They start with the 1940s, when Grumman — once Long Island’s largest corporate employer and producer of some of the most important planes in history — gave a Christmas party that would be called “massive” today.

They end with the 1980s when the big deal was big hair.

The pictures were culled by Newsday from the archives and personal collections of Long Island companies, the Freeport Memorial Library and individuals. And if the images make you wonder how these parties got started in the first place, there are a couple of origin stories, authorities say.

Some point to Victorian England and Charles Dickens’ novella, “A Christmas Carol,” published in 1843. The story takes readers on a journey through the past, present and future of the coldhearted banker, Ebenezer Scrooge, and included is a Christmas party given by his jovial former employer, Fezziwig.

“In came a fiddler with a music-book. In came all the young men and women employed in the business,” Dickens wrote. “In came the housemaid, with her cousin, the baker. There was cake, and there was negus [a hot wine punch], and there was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold Boiled [maybe ham or mutton], and there were mincemeat pies, and plenty of beer.”

Others say the office Christmas party as we know it in America started during the Great Depression when employers threw them to lift the spirits of workers who didn’t have extra money for merriment.

What is certain is that these get-togethers remain popular — despite a widespread name change to “holiday party” to be more inclusive, and restraints such as strict drunken driving laws, hurdles such as budget cuts, HR worries over misbehavior and COVID.

A survey by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. published earlier this month, found nearly two-thirds (64.4%) of U.S. companies will do face-to-face holiday festivities this year, with the global outplacement and business and executive coaching firm noting that’s up from 57% last year and 27 % who held in-person parties in 2021.

The findings are from an online survey conducted in November among 202 U.S.-based companies of various sizes and industries nationwide.

“This is the highest percentage of companies holding in-person holiday parties since 75% of companies reported they held parties in 2019" — the last pre-pandemic year — a summary of the survey said.

In a statement on his company website, Andrew Challenger, labor expert and senior vice president, added, “Despite companies approaching the end of the year cautiously due to the economy, they are ready to celebrate their teams, according to our findings, and want to do so in-person.”