The invitation said "festive business attire," which is the dress code version of "we should get lunch sometime." Nobody knows exactly what it means, and everybody shows up having interpreted it differently. Our office holiday party was last Friday, December 5, in a restaurant's event room in Huntsville, and I spent about a week thinking about it more than it deserved.
Here's the part that makes office parties their own category: I'd see every one of these people again on Monday. Technically on video, since Monday is a home day, and then in person on Tuesday in the lobby. So the goal was festive enough to look like I'd made an effort and normal enough that nobody would bring it up on Tuesday.
What I wore
- A black wrap dress I already owned. Ann Taylor, $60 when I bought it in 2024. It's one of the three dresses in my work capsule, and I wear it to the office about twice a month.
- New earrings. Gold-tone drop earrings from Belk, $24 on sale. This was the one festive thing.
- The $9 fix. My dry cleaner put two small hidden stitches in the wrap neckline so it would stay put. Wrap dresses have a way of drifting open when you lean over a buffet, and I didn't want to spend the night adjusting mine.
- Shoes I already trusted. My Naturalizer block heels, the same ones I wear for client presentations. I knew I'd be standing for two hours.
- Black tights I already had, because it was 41 degrees by the time we left.
Total new spending: $33. Ben wore his navy sport coat and asked if he looked festive. I told him he looked like he was about to announce the door prizes. He took that as a yes.
What I tried on and put back
I did go shopping first, to be honest about it. At Target I tried on a sequin top for $35 and looked like a disco ball that had been asked to present the quarterly budget. At Belk I found a deep green velvet dress for $89 that was lovely and that I would have worn exactly once a year. I put both back and bought the earrings on the way out.
Part of the reason was the budget. The morning after Thanksgiving I'd already ordered a winter coat I had been watching for two months, and my workwear line for 2025 was nearly spent. The $33 fit. The $89 dress did not.
The black dress with new earrings did what I needed. Three people said they liked the earrings. Nobody said anything about the dress, which is the right amount of attention for a dress at a work party.
My rules for the office party
- Wear something you'd be fine seeing in the company newsletter. Somebody always takes photos, and they always end up somewhere.
- Nothing you'll tug at all night. If it needs adjusting in the car, it'll need adjusting every ten minutes at the party.
- Shoes you can stand in. There is far more standing than sitting at these things.
- One festive thing. Earrings, a scarf, a lip color. One is plenty.
- Leave when you planned to leave. We were out the door by 9:15.
From the HR side: I've heard a lot of holiday party stories on Monday mornings over the years, and not one of them was about someone being dressed too plainly. The stories that followed people around were about behavior, never about a boring dress.
Leaving by 9:15 had a second reason. Carol kept Harper overnight in Hartselle, and the next morning at 9 I was hosting my second career coffee on Bank Street, with 12 women around a long table and a box of pastries I'd paid for. I wore jeans and the camel cardigan. Nobody there needed me festive.
The earrings have already been to the office twice since, which puts them at $8 a wear, the only kind of party math I trust. The $9 stitches are staying in.
