Beer Vs. Cookies: Choose Your Party

Here’s something totally new and cutting edge for you to think about before your holiday party. (I hope I’m not too late.) It seems that a group of women from our biggest hospital system (one of the nation’s top 10, they do not hesitate to mention) are having a beer party to celebrate the season. Yes. Beer. I know.


I know. You’re thinking, what happened to cookies and punch? Isn’t this a work-related activity? Aren’t alcoholic beverages, I don’t know, shall we say, sort of out of place at a workplace party? Okay, they don’t actually hold the party in the workplace, I’ll concede that.

Each woman brings 24 bottles to the party; six to share and eighteen to take home. So is each participant drinking six beers on site? Hello? Do we need an intervention here? Even if no one is driving home, how could anyone with six beers downed carry the other eighteen bottles to the Metro stop without falling and breaking them all, bloodying herself in the process? What am I missing here?

One of the organizers, Jennifer Arvin, is quoted in the St. Louis Post Dispatch today as saying, “Cookie exchanges are lame.”

Now, I’m not one to start trouble—or wait a second, maybe I am—but some of us happen to enjoy the cookie exchanges, and think that they are classic ways to spend the holiday season. Lame? Your mom’s lame. Cookies are, after all, wonderfully yummy, if made with enough butter and sugar. They also conjure up memories of Grandma, baking, warmth, happiness and fun. Did I mention that they taste really, really good? They may pile on the calories, but they’re worth it.

Beer has been known to plump up a significant number of bellies, too, for that matter. And to make people act dopey, get rowdy, or pass out, at least when consumed six at a time. And a beer tastes great at a ball game, or a cookout. But a beer exchange party?

The participants in the festivities are from the communications team of the hospital system. Mostly marketing and public relations staffers, according to the Post. A real bubbly group, I’m guessing. (Groan—sorry!) This is the third year for this gathering, and at least one husband is eagerly anticipating what his wife will bring home.

I’m wondering whether they got approval from their big bosses to have the photos taken, and put this on the front page of the daily paper. Or if tomorrow’s paper will carry a warning, a rebuke or an admonition from someone at MADD, or the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse. This same newspaper has carried a number of articles on DUIs recently, and our state’s miserable enforcement of the law.

Beer party: bad idea, or just bad timing? Nobody ever lost consciousness over too many snickerdoodles. Or did they… Maybe these women are just trying to get (wait for it--) a head.