1. Do go. It is a mistake to pass up on an opportunity to get to know colleagues at a more personal level.

2. Don’t talk business. This is the time to get to know people at a more personal level and to have some (restrained) fun.

3. Do make an effort to talk to everyone. Avoid just talking to your colleagues who work closest to you.

4. Don’t act like attending the party is as unpleasant as root canal. Your colleagues aren’t stupid and they will figure out that you don’t want to be around them.

5. Do exude fun. You don’t have to be the life of the party with a lamp shade over your head, but you do need to ask colleagues about their plans for the holidays. Will they be skiing? Snowboarding with their kids?

6. Don’t use sarcasm or other put down humor. If you are going to use humor, make yourself the butt of your own jokes. There is no sense in creating hurt feelings at a party.

7. Do be personal, but not overly personal. Now is not the time to tell a married client that you had a dream about him/her last night or that you always had a crush on him/her.

8. Dont say anything even mildly suggestive to an employee. (if you work for a big corporation that doesn’t frown upon office dating, and if the person you are interested in is not a superior or subordinate and if you are both single and if there seems like mutual interest, then, maybe, you can make a tentative open ended plan to go to a work-related social event in the near future but be very careful, you are treading on thin ice here!)

9. Do come prepared to talk about your own personal life, but stick to safe topics like what relatives are coming to visit you, what college your daughter is thinking of attending, etc.

10. Don’t blow a great opportunity. The holiday party is a great chance to get to know colleagues and form closer relationships that can spill over into the professional realm. Do your best to really connect with people.

Bonus tip: If everyone else is having a drink, you can have ONE as well. Just make sure you don’t drink on an empty stomach and then nurse your drink all night long so that there is not even the slightest hint to anyone that you were ever drunk…