On December 11, 2009, espresso hosted a party.

In an age of office parties that encourage over consumption and crass opulence, espresso chose a different path. This year, our Christmas party was all about zero waste and charitable donations.

A few borrowed draperies here and there, incredible reproductions of old circus posters, a popcorn machine, a hot dog stand, carnival games, a bearded lady, a ringmaster, tasty finger food and some booze were all it took to transform our offices into a bona fide freak show, or a scene out of HBO’s Carnivàle.

We volunteered to organize the espresso Freakshow, and it turned out to be a lot more work than we first thought! Getting our co-workers to travel beyond the oh-so-familiar walls of their office was no easy feat! In the end though, seeing their awestruck faces as they entered the joint was enough to assure us that we had done a pretty good job after all.

But the event that was the real barrel of laughs and entertainment (not to mention calorie burner) was the sumo-wrestling tournament. Who would have thought it would be the evening’s high point? We were like a bunch of kids, brawling and taunting each other . . . it was beautiful!

OK, fine, having fun is important, but helping others is even more so! Luckily for us philanthropists, one doesn’t exclude the other. By organizing a fantastic auction—where each person put an action or a service up for grabs—, we raised the tidy sum of $540 for Oxfam-Québec. Hats also go off to our president and our administrative services manager for helping raise $115 for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada by generously and self-sacrificingly agreeing to be the targets of a pie-throwing contest.

The day after the event (which continued into the wee hours of the morning!), no food was wasted, no expensive evening gowns were shelved, never to be seen again, and not a single sequin ended up in the garbage! That’s what I call partying responsibly. And to top it all off, not a single person lost their lunch!

View a slideshow of the event on Flickr