• by Kelly Samardak , December 15, 2009

Holiday Party Finale! New York
December 15 - December 18, 2009

For many of you (the ones I hate for updating your Twitter and Facebook statuses with such things), this is your final week of work.  Isn't that cute?  A lot of you are spending these final days of 2009 attending your own company holiday parties (hopefully NOT clothing-optional), many of which have popped up all over town, much to my surprise!  I was expecting a quiet party season this year what with all the depressing economic news, but maybe because everyone has been so beaten up, companies are giving their employees a chance to cut loose, over indulge, and get those racy copy machine photos out of the way. And I'll be there to document it...

Last week was one party after another -- I felt as if  I would get home, close my eyes, open my eyes and find myself in front of a tray of canapés again.  Saturday morning I woke up earlier than usual, full of anxiety, thinking I'd be late for the next big bash.   I won't even let you inside my head for the nightmares, but they include an enormous albino alligator, adopting babies from the UPS counter, and a yearly review conducted in the shower.  Analyze my dreams by catching up on last week's events over here!

This week, Monday was my best friend! No events found me on my couch and drooling to Intervention by 9 p.m.  Tonight, however, begins my final week of 2009 parties -- and it's the perfect mix of high energy glitter and mellowed-out matte. If Party Monster Michael Alig and Ben Stein had a baby, this week would be it.

Tonight: Wired Store AGAIN!  This time it's for Adrian Grenier (you may know him as the lady product sack on "Entourage," Vinnie Chase) and the launch of SHFT.com (Stonyfield Farm is their founding partner), a site dedicated to "design and living well" wrapped in that pretty bow of environmental awareness.  The site promises to be loaded with goodies like a shop filled with sustainable products, a reading resource section so you can sound with-it when you run into Al Gore on the moon, and a video section with original SHFT vids, as well as those they've aggregated.

Wednesday night I have another "Mad Men"-themed party, but I will not be making the mistake of dressing as a hippie thinking that is appropriate.  Oh no, my little friends, I am procuring from the MediaPost rental department, headed up by Ed In Chief Joe Mandese, a SLEW of fedoras.  Mmhmm, I plan to dress as a man for Tremor Media's holiday party in the Royalton Hotel Penthouse Suite.  Methinks this will be a little Funhouse vs. Penthouse competition.

Thursday night is the Mashable holiday party on the penthouse floor of the Roger Smith Hotel.  Proceeds from their ticket sales are going to the Association to Benefit Children (ABC), which is never a bad thing.  Looks to be an intimate evening of 150 people from around the digital landscape, so expect tons of photos.   I hope to catch Mashable COO Adam Hirsch and Editor In Chief Adam Ostrow in some sort of "Battle of the Adams: Who will emerge as New York's Favorite?"  Maybe I'll bring my taser to get things started.

And finally, to Friday, the greatest day of the week, the hardest day of the week to motivate  myself to go OUT after a long week of being OUT every night.   But Joe Marchese, President of SocialVibe, makes it pretty easy.  He'll be in town (stopping to breathe during his usual game of East Coast-West Coast leap-frog!) and while he's mid-pause, he's throwing a little Tweetup at...The Hill, of all places.  Smack dab in dingdong town Murray Hill, a nice little dose of people will be tipping more than a few glasses at this holiday happy hour.  I hope that either he invites these contortionists, or that the Carrot Creative crew does some sort of interpretation of them.

After that, well, I'll be checking to see if the agencies, consultancies, publishers and the like that become dormant from December  21^st to January 4^th have left their doors unlocked -- because Kelly needs a new laptop!

Send invitations to kelly@mediapost.com!

All Just An Online Minute photos can be found on Flickr!