Rather than having Christmas parties and Chinese New Year celebrations, many companies here hold an annual ball for their staff (and sometimes partners).My work held its annual ball with the theme of Magical Masquerade.
After searching an area known as The Lanes for a mask for Mr Shallot and myself, our neighbours (the Waves) revealed they had purchased masks on their trip to Venice many years back for just such an occasion yet they hadn’t been to one as yet.Lucky for me, one of the masks had bright pink in it which perfectly matched with my dress.
We were able to leave work early on Thursday to give us enough time to frock up. The real bonus was saved for Friday where we could have a late start. Interesting given most people seemed to leave the function as soon as the food stopped and the dancing started.
We arrived at the ball to find most of my colleagues unrecognizable, which I suppose was the idea. Some people had on traditional French courtier type outfits while others were in more standard formal attire. I don’t think these were recycled bridesmaid outfits unless they’d attended a theme wedding.
Some of the masks were amazing with intricate details. These always tend to appeal to me – I think I just like the effort behind it knowing that it is highly unlikely that I could do something so involved, between the patience and the steady hand required. Other masks were just funny such as the gas mask and the guy who dressed up as a surgeon.
We were all assigned to tables with names relating to some magical element. There were table prizes, dress up prizes, lucky prizes and so on. Some of the senior management team did magic tricks including sawing a person in half and putting one person in a box and swapping them with another. Apparently they learnt how to do it in a 30 minute session. It was all very professional and set to music. Like true professionals, they still haven’t revealed the secrets behind the tricks! Even more impressively, one of the senior managers actually sang and was surprisingly good. His next career could be as a lounge singer.
Mr Shallot, who is not generally one to get into the whole dress up thing even managed to have a good time. I think he just enjoyed hiding behind his mask. As you can see, the design of them did make it a little tricky to drink so we needed to lift our noses for a sip. There were no straws which would have made things easier but from Mr Shallot’s point of view, it’s not a good idea to drink beer through a straw. We took them off altogether for the main meal.
The highlight of my evening was winning an Apple i-touch.
* Thanks to composer Andrew Lloyd Webber for the title to this post.