1950 The Office Christmas Party Sam Cobean Cartoons Xmas Memo Magazine Feature

[Three full pages on two sheets, separated and printed on the front and back.]

ΜΕΜΟ: Το All Personnel

Subject: Xmas Party

THE OFFICE CHRISTMAS PARTY-boisterous, bibulous, and occasionally libidinous though it may be is, on the whole, a commendable tribal rite of U.S. business. If it is not, in all respects, exemplary of the Christian ethic, it is at least a hearty exercise in good-fellowship and good will, and a thumping affirmation of the democratic way of life.

To be sure, there will always be a question in the minds of cautious men and women as to whether the pleasures of participating in this annual business bacchanal are worth the risks entailed. Many a clerk quakes, the morn-ing after, at a hazy recollection of haranguing the boss on management's stupidities; the boss himself, for that matter, may suffer a hot flash of regret for having lifted his quaver-ing baritone, at one point, in the strains of The minstrels sing of an English King... And what is one to make of the inflamed second and third vice presidents publicly panting after the shapely Miss Schultz, suddenly emerged from the obscurity of the Collections & Audits Department-or more to the point, perhaps, can one make Miss Schultz?

But these hazards and humiliations, some of which are delineated in the Cobean sketches subjoined, are relative-ly innocuous and rarely inflict permanent scars. In the un-bending of the boss, the bussing of Miss Schultz, and in all the other idiocies of the evening, it is possible to perceive evidences of a basic belief in the Brotherhood of Man. In its own peculiar way, it is a kind of raucous, twentieth-century Christmas carol.

And indeed, if Charles Dickens were writing his master piece today, there'd be some changes made. Obviously the firm of Scrooge & Marley, for all its tightfistedness, would be required to throw an office Christmas party, and obviously poor Bob Cratchit, that cowed and humble clerk, would have the courage of his cups to put the bee on Scrooge for shorter hours and higher pay. Old Scrooge himself, in a boozy regeneration scene, would probably wind up leading a conga line, and at the Cratehit home the voice of Tiny Tim might be heard exclaiming, "God help us all, Pop's at the office party tonigh!"