German company Christmas parties

So I am looking for actual reasons as to why it is the norm here to have festive Corporate Christmas Parties that do not include the Spouses or Partners?

Just really kind of seems like a very anti-social thing to me. Back in the States (not to say that it is right) but they were used to put names with faces of your colleagues loved ones. I think that if the policy was like it is here there would be far less attendance to these functions as it all seems to be a little bit pointless to go and celebrate the Holidays outside the office and in the evening with the people that you see day in and day out.

Just looking for valid points of view that is all...

Germans separate work life from personal life. They protect their personal/private life. So these work parties are not meant to mix these two lives.

My company in the States had two parties, one for employees only, somewhat informal, and a second, bigger scale, real deal party, for spouses and dates. It worked well.

I'm not sure it is the norm. Where I work now it's like that, but my previous company was always with partners.

Hey at least you get a Christmas party. We get Glühwein and a couple cookies in the lobby

Partners are always invited to ours too.

It pretty normal here to exclude the spouses and families - I personally think it's because the CEOs are trying to get it on with the lehrlings...

I have always brought a partner (or two) with me to these events. I figure it is not on the clock, I will bring people with whom I want to associate with. However, I was the only one that brought a guest. And these include more private invites to co-workers home parties. I bring my guest (after RSVPing for two), but I am the only one who did.

i think, as brokenm suggests, that germans tend to keep their personal and work lives as separate as possible. i guess some companies do it, but i not many and none i've heard of. anyway, you're wife'd only give you hell for flirting drunkenly with the hot secretary! ;-)

Where I work, most of the people appear to have very little social life if any. Therefore for them the Xmas party is a major social event. Partners are not invited, maybe due to the fact that it cuts down on the cost and having to find a restaurant large enough to accomodate the extra people although I am not certain.

I went once and nearly died of boredom - most people drinking water and some 1 or 2 glasses of wine. We even ended up somewhere that didn't serve Helles, only Pils.

Our party is this Friday but needless to say I shall not be attending. I think I shall sit in the pub and watch the world cup draw instead. Believe me, far more interesting.

no xmas parties at my company, as per usual. We are currently having a really lame "party" in the sekretariat" we all brought stuff ourselves. I hate that sort of thing. really lame and no xmas spirit.

the main reason we have no parties at the company expense is the shear cost of it all. Another reason is that companies are only allowed to spend a certain amuont per person per year (i Don't know the exact amoutn but it is not very high) before it becomes a taxable benefit for the employee. Adding spouses would spriral the cost.

Geez, how sad for you. At my company, we have the party inhouse and the boss springs for all the beer, wine and food you can drink. The last in-house party ended at 6 am - the Christmas party will be no different. And you can bring your S.O. or not - but for most, it's more fun without them.

Well my company changed the name from "Weihnchatsfeier" to "Jahresabschlußfeier", b/c it traditionally consists of Oktoberfest-style heavy drinking, partying and over-eating so it was concluded the word "Christmas" is not appropriate here, and perhaps for the same reason spouses/partners are not welcome. Also, there'll be roughly 3000 people and if they all were to bring a guest there wouldn't be enough room. It's next week and I'm looking forward to it

Here is what my grand party invitation reads like:
Alle Jahre Wieder! Weihnachtsfeier 2005
Findet am 21.12.2005 um 17.30 im XXXXX statt.
Wir möchten Sie zu unserer diesjährigen Weihnachtsfeier ganz herzlich einladen. Auf diesem Wege bedanken wir uns vielmals für Ihre Hilfe und Unterstützung während dieses Jahres.

Die Getränke werden von uns gestellt, aber für einen Beitrag in Form von Essensköstlichkeiten sind wir sehr dankbar.
Wir freuen uns auf Ihr Kommen!

So I get free drinks, but I must bring a "potluck" meal. This is opposite from my work place in the US. Free food, but I have to buy the drinks.

partners are invited at our place...
this would have been a good thread for a poll, I reckon

i wonder if they throw a bash down at the agentur fuer arbeit?

the EPO do is a posh affair (at the Königshof hotel I think), which means I don't belong there.
so all the rebel ex-pats had a knees up last Friday (we even had proper British Xmas dinner and mince pies! ) was a great larf (I think ) and we even smuggled Wibble in!

And was I ever paying for it on Saturday. Felt like I was at deaths door. Also managed to fall asleep with a saucepan on the hob. Fortunately it only had water in it (well at the start anyway) as it was on the hob for about 7 hours.

Still it's an improvement on my usual method of adding the pasta to the pan and then passing out or cooking oven chips for 8 hours. This time the flat didn't smell burnt.

well if you weren't a veggie you could eat wholesome kebab on the way home with the rest of us! it's safer!

It really pisses me off that I'm not invited to the holiday parties of my husband's place of work. He's going to the *third* one already tomorrow! Wtf? I might not even want to go but I'd appreciate at least being able to choose.

I've never been invited to a company "year-end" bash in Germany where partners were included. In the UK it was the other way round. Makes sod-all difference to me this year though

Well, I don't go to ours as we have to pay and thus out of politeness I wouldn't be able to eat/drink my money's worth.
Partners can go but being the partner at such an event can be dull as hell, if I'm honest.
Nothing beats the Basildon DHSS Christmas party in 1987 for class.
Having to roll my supervisor and our seccy's husband (while shagging) off my coat is an experience I shall never forget.

if your colleges brought their SOs then they wouldn't let their hair down. they'd stick to the better half and make niceties with everyone.

i'm invited to two christmas parties this year. ah, the luxuries of being a consultant. boy, will they be different.

Our do is also without partners in that metropolis that is Neubiberg ( god knows why ? ).

It will start off as everyone eating dinner and chatting politely to the boss over aperitifs and maybe a drink after . . . .

and then all the permies ( angestelters ) will piss off and the ex-pat contractors will end up pissed as parrots and probably visiting one of the other boozers in town.

Oh yeah, we have to pay for it too although not sure if the locals do ?

OUr place dont do xmas party but do have a big one in the summer.
At the first one I was at 5 yrs ago it was no partners allowed and it was so much fun! The same the following year...however then they decided to allow you to invite partners and people did...and it was so dull! Everyone was sticking to their partners side all night, naturally as the partner didnt know anyone there, they were not drinking and it was a big flop...they still say you can bring partners but not many do anymore and it is finally becoming fun again!

The first couple of times my husband's company had social events, I went because I always did in the US and my husband assumed that partners were invited. How embarrassing that I was the only non-colleague! Got the picture pretty quickly.

This year the company is having a holiday party, but they sent round a mail that they can't afford to pay for it all. They're asking for 10 euro per employee who wants to go, so they can have it at a cheap Italian restaurant. This has caused lots of grumbling in the ranks, so I was surprised to read some of the other posts here that ask employees to pay something, as well.

Last office but one the lawyers brought spouses and the foot-soldiers couldn't. My favorite co-worker and I took revenge by staying sober and taking pictures of the drunks.

Your employer/company can spend up to €110 (gross) on you before it becomes a taxable liability, which is quite high (unlike for "presents" where they can only spend up to €35...). They can do do this twice a year. In the case of an organised party, then all costs related to the party (room rental, decoration, catering, travel, etc.,) count to the final cost, divided between all employees attending to get the average figure, which should be held under that magical €110 before the taxman takes an interest

I have always wondered about this!!! I think it's sooo rude that spouses/significant others aren't invited. I once misunderstood the invitation to my company christmas party and brought my husband...and then quickly realized that he was the only "outsider" there. Was pretty dumb when my boss got up on the table and started giving us a talk about the company's performance.

yea i think its pretty shitty that S.O's usually aren't invited to company parties. My bf has 2 company parties..one is paid for by the company and the other he has to pay for. I can understand not being invited to the one the company pays for, but what difference would it make if he is paying? But ont he other hand I prolly wouldn't go anyway cuz I'd be bored out of my mind. Went to a company BBQ once and it sucked.

This thread is actually a relief! I was starting to think that my boyfriend thought I was acceptable enough to bring to his flying club's party (where all the other women there were wives and girlfriends, too) but not enough to bring to the office Christmas dinner.

Well, I'll go ahead and invite him to my (American defense contractor) office party, which is always a reasonably good time. Partially to ward off the 45-60 year old guys who keep asking me on dates Dudes, many of you have DAUGHTERS my age. Step off, fools.

Yeah I also found it a bit strange. My husband is my best friend so we tend to have fun no matter what...I don't think he would find it that boring (although I might find his boring as it is held in the canteen hehe). My workmates are tons of fun and he has already been to several parties and met them so it would be really cool. But seems it is more the norm here to exclude spouses than not.

Would be interested in poll results.

Our department parties tend to be employees-only (partially paid for out of the department budget, and we have to pay the rest), although we had one large company-wide party to which we were allowed to invite S.O's.

Back in the UK my first company didn't have any parties at all, and the second was always employees-only (and usually consisted of the boss putting a bit of cash behind the bar, which lasted for two or three drinks each).

My last company laid on 3 events a year. Christmas was a bit posh, a nice dinner and a jazz band or something, I´d say about half brought their partners. Summer was a road trip somewhere, last time we went to Regensburg for a few light ´team building´ exercises, a sightseeing trip on the river, then the rest of the afternoon in a beer garden . That was employees only but a few brought wives/kids. Then there was the summer grill in the car park, but last time it pissed down so we ended up sitting on benches in the foyer. All in all pretty generous I´d say.

The most fun ones though were working back in the UK. The christmas dinner was a pretty low budget affair but it had become tradition to go armed with a water pistol. Cue management getting surreptitous squirts and getting exceedingly pissed off.

I'm not invited to my partners xmas do ... ... it does seem to be the German way...However from my expereince in the UK, the reason for leaving partners out was that work colleagues tend to let there hair down a bit more if the spouses are not around. I don't think it's all a money thing (why not donate money for the partner)? and still include them.

Maybe it depends on how loved up/married/with kids the CEO of the company is...that tends to have a real effect on these kind of things.

I went to a UK Xmas party once with partners - to a really posh hotel in the country...it got very out of hand with about 5 couples (flirting with each other)...one Director was walking around with a white dinner jacket with a foot print on the back!!! it was a riot!!! they swore never to include partners again, it caused too many problems..

Oh and you know what, I think it's mean that partners are not included...I support my husband so much in his career and give him advice and help with issues - if only the company knew how much support is given by a partner (in fact especially where partners have moved over here in support)...to be left out, is like saying you don't count...when in fact if we are all not happy, that will effect the job !!!

I don't think it is particular a German thing. It depends on the culture of the companies. In my present job, we had a Betriebsausflug in the summer where families including babies were included, the xmas-do is staff only. my xmas parties in UK never included partners. I don't mind either way. a friend of mine hates going to her partner's work events. she is supporting her partner here in munich (they are from US) but rather goes out with her friends.

I guess different companies do things different ways...

I agree it's fun to go out separately (where you can, I've got two babies, so time for making friends would be some what limited for me). Those days are over for now...so I guess the company do would have been a highlight right now...

I've travelled the world a couple of times...and I can say if I never got invited to another Xmas do again, I wouldn't die unhappy..

As for the comment about hating the event...it depends what you are like at socailising...i've never found any company do dredfull...a night out is what you make it after all???

Some people have mentioned being bored at these things...but aren't bored people boring...?

Have only ever worked for one company in last ten years where partners were invited to the Christmas do...think for a lot of companies it is a cost thing though.

@ annabella.
for the record, my friend is not boring, she is actually the opposite!!!
it is the case of people at work functions speaking about work which means for an outsider it is boring.

This is why sweeping statements get mis-read...

In my working life, I'm actually in the same industry as my husband, so I'd find it very interesting to
talk with his work collegues...and if I wasn't I guess I'd just talk with the other partners...surely they are not
all talking shop...

At the end of the day, this was a topic about Xmas parties and partners...not weather partners go out separately or not, that's another topic for another time

Sometimes the company Christmas party isn't really that festive.