Let's be honest, the Christmas party is a good time for bonding with colleagues, being recognised by your company for your hard work over the year, and a welcome break from the tedium of day to day work, but it is also an occasion that springs up a delightfully large number of embarrassing, hilarious and outrageous stories! There have been some absolute corkers over the years, so let's take a look around the globe and pick out a collection of the best.

The 'secret' Spurs party

In 2009, Tottenham Hotspur captain Robbie Keane defied the orders of manager Harry Redknapp by taking his football team on a 'secret' Christmas day out to Dublin via private jet, at the cost of a reported £2,000 per head. The only problem was that the boss got wind of it, and they ended up having to fork out £20,000 each in fines.

Don't break the Dinosaur!

As possibly the most famous Christmas Party story in London's glitteringly fabulous festive event history, the Natural History Museum's prize centre-piece, 'Dippy' the Diplodocus (discovered in the USA in the late 1800's) came face to face with its fiercest adversary for 60 million years - a bad boy City banker! A few drinks later and this adventurous banker spontaneously leapt from his table and started to ascend the dinosaur's gigantic frame (well, it's ribcage anyway). It turns out, though, that 60 million year old dinosaur ribs aren't all they're cracked up to be. A rumoured thirty thousand pounds and an almost certain sacking later, 'Dippy' now has an artificial rib and there's a sign saying 'Don't touch the dinosaur!'

The missed Christmas bounty

A Reddit contributor in the USA known only as BadDayBozo, perhaps fittingly, told the story of how he left a work Christmas party after believing it to be dying down, missing the company raffle. Not only did he miss out on a widescreen TV when his name was drawn, he also lost out on $2000 [£1,327] thanks to his decision to make an early exit, after his name was drawn again but the decision was taken to 'redraw'. Ouch.

Live Twitter falls (fails!)

One of the many fun features at a major 1,000 person shared party in one of London's most prominent venues was a gigantic real-time Twitter wall whereby revellers were encouraged to contribute positive tweets about the event. What could possibly go wrong? Well, in fact, nothing because a clever 30 second 'approval delay' policy was in place whereby the designated 'Twitter police' could vet controversial tweets following the previous year's real time exposé of a high profile corporate affair - in giant format!

Photocopiers

We couldn’t write a blog and not include the photocopier mishaps that go on after a few drinks. If there's one anywhere near your office party then it's going to be done. It's as simple as that. If you're a boss who doesn't like inappropriate prints, don't throw a party in your actual office. Ever.