The good news is you may not have to sheepishly sneak into the office the Monday after your work Christmas party this year.
The bad news is you may not have a Christmas party at all, with bookings in Canberra plummeting for the traditional celebration time of the year as coronavirus uncertainty hovers over summer-time events.
Event organisers have spent the past six months making alternative arrangements for festivals, conventions and concerts to adhere to COVID-19 restrictions.
Everyone hoped the world would be back to normal by Christmas, but Canberra's party boat operators have reported a 94 per cent drop in their usual November-December activity. They have just three bookings for the two-month period this year, which is normally flat out with 50 party requests.
Public service departments are telling staff to adhere to social-distancing requirements, while private operators in Canberra are considering outdoor gatherings.
"I think people are just concerned about the social distancing, and getting together as a social gathering because it's almost frowned upon," new party boat co-owner Charmaine Ogilvie said. "Like, if it's not essential you shouldn't be doing it."
Ms Ogilvie said she would seek an exemption to increase passenger numbers to allow for one person per two-square metres. If that was possible, she said: "we might be able to survive".
Some workplaces still expect to have a function, even though coronavirus concerns have delayed locking in the details. Cataldo's Salon's first Christmas party was a big picnic in the park about 45 years ago and director Emilio Cataldo said he thought this year's might have to be something similar.
Mr Cataldo was yet to make a booking but he intended to throw a Christmas party for more than 30 staff at an outdoor venue, with food and drink provided by a local business.
"If we can hold it we should hold it, because we feel strongly about spending the money in the local economy," Mr Cataldo said. "We want those local businesses to be around when things go back to normal."
After slowly returning to normal operations, Canberra-Weston Creek Rotary Club President Tony Maple said it was time to begin carefully planning a safe Christmas party.
"We want to recognise the people who we value, who are committed to the community," Mr Maple said.
Others weren't so sure. Maxwell and Co Barristers and Solicitors would usually have had something planned and booked by now to celebrate the end of the season, but are yet to finalise plans.
Questacon, the ACT Emergency Services Agency and federal government department spokespeople also said staff Christmas party plans were on hold for 2020.
"We always have the intention to do a big celebration, although sometimes we have to wait until April," an ESA spokesperson said. "And COVID makes it even more complicated."
For the workplaces who do forge ahead, hospitality venues and function centres around Canberra have had to rethink what Christmas parties might look like in a pandemic. Event planners have even coined the term "delegate distancing" to describe the way party guests will give each other personal space.
The National Convention Centre Canberra has the capacity to host 1500 guests but has not hosted an event since March.
General manager Stephen Wood said there were a number of tentative bookings for end of year events, but it will depend on how and when restrictions ease.
"If the ACT government kept the one to four-square-metres requirement, in terms of capacity limitation, but not capped at 100, then we could contemplate a dinner for 500 in the exhibition hall," he said.
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In a normal year, Canberra's QT and Rydges would host huge events for up to 600 guests and back-to-back lunches and dinners for 400 people.
Now, QT & Rydges director of sales and marketing Natalie Graham said some of her big clients, including government departments, were considering splitting people into smaller groups and running parties over a couple of nights with the one person per four-square-metre rule in place.
Her office has received some hopeful requests for events of more than 100 people, although no one is "entirely ready to commit".
"We definitely have seen a lot of confidence in the market that restrictions should be eased enough for people to be able to celebrate Christmas," she said. "We just want to start getting some celebrations happening."
For Lala marketing director Jessica Arena, who runs five venues including 88mph Karaoke bar, Molly and Highball Express, hospitality venues' biggest concern right now is whether capacity will increase before Christmas.
"At the moment, if you've got a big work team, or even if you've got a small work team, there's just so few options for being able to get people into the venue," Ms Arena said.
In a normal year, large scale Christmas parties would be booked out at this time from Tuesdays to the weekend all the way up to December.
"We had Christmas parties that were booked last year for this year, and we've had to put them on notice that it's not very likely they'll happen," she said.
Ms Arena has decided not to take bookings for Christmas parties yet - and instead wait and see if restrictions ease further in the coming weeks.
She predicts rather than the lavish parties of previous years, this year will call for smaller team gatherings instead of whole office affairs. That'll be tough on hospitality venues who rely on the Christmas season to survive.
"The reality is if [businesses don't host Christmas parties'] in a venue, they're going to do it in their office, or they're going to do it in a park," she said. "It's a really important part of the wind down for the year.
"[But] I think there's going to be a lot of venues that don't make it through that quieter period."
Yarralumla Gallery and the Oaks Brasserie manager Rhys Schmutter's Christmas season this year is full of unknowns. He's yet to lock in any big corporate events, instead limited to smaller family groups of 15 to 20 people.
"We weren't really expecting to [have big parties] so...it's not really a surprise, but it's still sad," he said.
With restrictions in place, Yarralumla Gallery is lucky to have outdoor seating for up to 100 people, but indoors, have been reduced by 75 per cent to just 30 guests.
While backup plans could usually be put into place for bad weather, now, as soon as it rains they've got a "very, very small area under cover".
"Where things might normally go ahead, one little contingency might put people off, whereas normally, it wouldn't be a problem," Mr Schmutter said. "It's very hard to predict. So we're just doing what we can."
