Your complimentary articles

You’ve read all of your complimentary articles for this month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please

SUBSCRIBE NOW

If you are a subscriber please sign in to your account.

To buy or renew a subscription please visit Subscriptions.

If you are a print subscriber you can contact us to create an online account.

Fiction

Christmas Party Philosophy

Tim Wilkinson sure knows how to have a good time.

As ever I am anticipating a good turnout at my local Philosophical Society’s Christmas dinner this year. The dinner may not be an actual ‘office party’, but anyone familiar with the goings-on at such gatherings will probably not be surprised to hear that last year, after a number of priceless and embarrassing indiscretions by certain members of the Society (all caught on camera – you know who you are), I finally passed out from a lethal combination of mulled wine, Newcastle Brown Ale, and unusually strong pickled onions.

I awoke in unfamiliar surroundings, and found myself confronted by an ageing and somewhat rotund white-bearded gentleman dressed in a red suit, who introduced himself as St Nicholas Newcomb. I was a little mystified as to where I was and how I had got there, but assumed that the pranksters in the Society must have spiked my drinks in order to make me the subject of one of their hilarious philosophical stunts.

The next thing I knew the St Nicholas impersonator was offering me two Christmas presents.

…