It’s the season of the accursed Christmas party. While the county council’s Christmas event is generally a good auld night out, it is often a fraught affair. Most people enjoy it, but some make such an ape of themselves, it takes them months to recover from the self-inflicted disgrace.

In the course of the night, you can bet your last euro that some male staff member will stagger up to the county manager and tell him that not only is he a total gobdaw, but a dog with a mallet in his left ear would do a better job than him.

It is equally probable that a female member of staff, emboldened by drink, will grab the manager by the tie and lead him on to the floor for a slow dance. As she sways with him to the strains of that old Eagles hit, If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body Would You Hold it Against Me, she locks onto him and asks him what he’s getting from Santy.

At that moment he’s not too concerned about what the man in red might bring down the chimney, but he is deeply concerned about what his wife might do when she comes back from the loo and sees him in early stages of flagrante delicto with this hussy, a mere grade III from motor tax.

The old adage that warns us to beware of the quiet ones is very apt when it comes to the annual Yuletide festivities. A fella whose normal definition of cutting loose means doing two crosswords in the one day can become transformed at the Christmas party. At the end of the night he’s liable to be found barefoot on a table with his comb-over all askew, gyrating to the music in a fashion that would cause Miley Cyrus to blush.

I am reminded of a woman who worked at the reception here in the council for years. Kathleen Calahoon was her real name, but she was affectionately known as Kathleen Can-You-Hold.

A paragon of virtue, she didn’t drink or smoke, made annual pilgrimages to Knock, Lough Derg and Croagh Patrick, and was an agent for religious magazines such as The Sacred Heart Messenger and The Far East.

Kathleen was also a member of the local musical society and took a great interest in theatre and the performing “orts”. She herself was never known to perform, but was always in the background, mending costumes, typing programmes and selling tickets.

At one of the Christmas parties she decided that a few sherries wouldn’t go astray, and as they say, one sherry gave her the taste for another, until Kathleen lost her natural reserve and in a Susan Boyle moment made a beeline for the band. Well, it wasn’t quite a beeline, it was more of a sideline drift – she was heading northeast while facing northwest, like a Ford Cortina with a dodgy back spring.

The band playing at the party was also the resident band for the musicals and they knew Kathleen well. She homed in on the lead singer and after a whispered conversation he introduced her to the crowd who reacted with a mixture of surprise and curiosity. We straightened ourselves when she launched into a version of Marilyn Monroe’s I Want to be Loved by You. It was as good a cabaret performance as you’d see in Berlin or Boston. With a long boa-like scarf thrown over her shoulder, she went from man to man, winding herself around them, polishing their bald heads, tickling their chins and wiggling their noses ’til she ended up on my lap for her final “boo-boo-be-doo”.

I didn’t know where to look and I wasn’t sure if the standing ovation was for Kathleen or me. She took a bow, went back to her seat and was at the reception desk at county hall the following morning as if nothing happened. People stopped to congratulate her, but she just smiled, nodded, and continued answering the phones: “Comhairle chontae can you hold please.”

With my new job at the recycling depot, I have an extra Christmas party to look forward to this year. When I asked my colleagues, Todd and The Whip Carey, what shape their festive event takes, I went weak at the knees.

“Last year was quiet enough,” says Todd. “We ended up at a hen party in Thurles and slept in the Volvo. The year before was more lively – we woke in a cell in Dungarvan garda station, the county manager had to get us out.”

“And what about this year?” I asked.

“We’re going to your local, Walshe’s of Killdicken?”

“What made you choose Walshe’s?”

“You,” says Todd. “Aren’t you well in with the publican and with the guards, and sure you won’t see us stuck for a bed.”

Ho, ho, flippin’ ho.