Chore or vital social ritual? The traditional Christmas party Photo: GETTY  Walking past a restaurant in the City at lunchtime, I spotted an office party in progress. There were 30 of so of them – archetypal office workers, people like you and me, at various stages of the great odyssey from work experience to retirement – lined up along a huge, snaking table, in their shirt-sleeves and paper hats.  You could hear the bursts of forced jollity from the street. Many of the revellers had turned their chairs towards one or other neighbour, grateful to have stumbled upon a conversation that might sustain them through lunch; but some inevitably found themselves cast adrift. A middle-aged man, stranded between the swivelled backs of two gossiping colleagues, gazed out of the window and caught my eye, with a look that said: "Could be worse. At least it's only lunch…"  The British office party, it must be admitted, can be a desultory affair – which may explain why it seems to be in danger of extinction. A poll published this week found that less than half of employees expect to attend a company party this year. This suits them just fine: 66 per cent say they would rather spend the time with friends or family. Indeed, 90 per cent would rather have the party budget divided up and given out in cash.  It is tempting to see this attitude as a reflection of the downbeat, parsimonious times. But in truth, it is more a reflection of our national character, which delights in killing joy. In Spain, where the recession is every bit as painful, 58 per cent of workers say they can't wait for their office party, and love socialising with their colleagues.  In this respect, if few others, I find I have a little Hispanic in me. For one thing, some of us can't afford to be sniffy about social invitations. The media's annual invocation of the "party season" – a riot of spangly dresses, wild dance moves and drunken kisses – is a cliché that, for most of us, has woefully little basis in reality.  I do remember a time when, for several nights in late December, I would wriggle into something mercilessly tight and totter off to this or that drinks party in search of a husband. But once you are old and tired and fat – and that's most of us, after all – you don't get asked to proper parties much any more. Even if you did, you'd be too lazy to go.  Just as the sex pests who seemed to lurk on every bus when I was a nubile teenager have mysteriously melted away, so the festive sound of party invitations rattling through my letterbox has faded into silence. The office party is the only one left where I am – touch wood – guaranteed a place on the guest list.  Nor is that its only virtue. Most British employees spend at least as much time with our workmates as we do with our children, spouses or friends. Yet very often, we hardly know each other at all.  It is quite possible to spend years sitting opposite a person, sharing a kitchen and a lavatory with them, eavesdropping on their phone conversations, watching them grow old, and feel that you could no more ask them a personal question than you could a stranger on the bus.  To some extent, this is deliberate. We don't want to feel that our lives – by which we mean the good stuff, involving friendship and love – are spent at work, so we try to maintain some psychological distance from it, and from its denizens. Besides, if we started really talking to each other, we'd never get anything done.  But to be required, once a year, to converse with your colleagues for longer than it takes to boil a kettle or change the printer cartridge isn't such a hardship. It's an acknowledgement of reality: these are the people we while away the years with. We might as well try to make it fun.
For all the mockery, the British office party is an institution vital to our    atomised lives, claims Jemima Lewis.