Annabel Kaye provides this tongue-in-cheek memo for employees from an employer brave enough to risk a Christmas party.

Dear employees:

We are organising the annual Christmas party, and a Mr Klaus has agreed to be our entertainer. After last year’s party (by the way, congratulations on the baby, Miss Smith) we thought it would be a good idea to lay down some ground rules so we don’t get into trouble with any of this equality stuff.

1. Don’t tell Santa he’s fat. We don’t know if this is from over eating, or caused by some kind of medical problem. But we don’t want him to raise a disability harassment claim against us – so just don’t mention it at all.
2. If you know anyone qualified to do a risk assessment on the chimney before he climbs down it, please contact HR – we don’t seem to have a checklist for this.
3. Don’t talk about Santa’s age. We know he is over our usual retirement age for employees, but you must not make any remarks which might get us into trouble with an age discrimination claim.
4. Don’t talk about how much he is getting paid. We don’t want an equal pay claim from Mrs Santa or the Elves.
5. Try not to mention pensions. Santa is already complaining about his mean pension plan, and the number of centuries he has had to work. We don’t want him finding out about the Executive Pension plan and its perks.
6. Don’t let any women sit on his knee – even if they seem to be enjoying it. We don’t want any sexual harassment claims this year. We had enough trouble last year when our ex-Finance Director claimed that he was Santa and made the marketing assistants sit on his knee – that cost us a fortune.
7. Don’t let any men sit on his knee – we can’t have then men enjoying something the women aren’t allowed to do.
8. Don’t make any remarks about the men who want to sit on Santa’s knee. Everyone is entitled to their own orientation, and a preference for men from the north is not to be joked about.
9. There are rumours (unfounded, of course) that Santa likes to sit children on his knee. Such behaviour may bring our business into disrepute, and if you see any attempt at such behaviour you must report it immediately. The fact that you like to behave childishly does not give you the right to sit on Santa’s knee either.
10. You may notice that some of the Elves are green. You must not make any remark about their colour, or where they come from. We don’t want any race discrimination claims.
11. Please don’t ask Santa what his religion is or what this has to do with Christmas. We had enough of religious discrimination complaints last year when that girl from finance claimed she had a right to eat as much as she liked because her religion was food. But even so, to suggest that it was “only a joke” to make her eat the nativity donkey was going a bit far.
12. Don’t  insist on Santa eating a mince pie and having a glass of sherry. We don’t know whether Santa’s beliefs allow him to consume alcohol. And  maybe the mince pies haven’t been stored at a safe temperature. Much better not to offer him anything at all while he is on our premises.
13. Some of you may not have read our new policy in bribery and gifts. You must not accept any gifts from Santa under any circumstances. This is an office party, and Santa is acting in his official capacity, so the acceptance of gifts will be deemed a gross misconduct offence.
14. While we are talking about gross misconduct, Santa owns the copyright in his image and you may not take any photographs or him or his elves or your colleagues without a written release form, signed in advance in triplicate. Whoever posted that photo on the internet of our Sales Director without his trousers is not going to get away with it again. We are monitoring all emails and social networks just to be sure.

Remember, folks, the purpose of the office party is to relax and have a good time! But we will be keeping our employment law advisors on emergency standby just in case.

Seasons greetings from HR.

Annabel Kaye is an employment lawyer with Irenicon. You can visit her online at www.irenicon.co.uk and see her Twitter updates by following AnnabelKaye.