Christmas potluck sign up sheet

Office parties and family gatherings need different sheets

An office Christmas potluck has people who do not know each other's diets, a room with one microwave, and somebody who will be offended if there is nothing they can eat. A family one has none of those problems and a different one: everybody assumes somebody else is bringing the pudding.

The template on this page covers both, but if it is an office party, keep the vegetarian question — it is the one that most often gets missed and most often matters.

Ask about alcohol explicitly

Christmas dishes contain more alcohol than people expect — the pudding, the cake, the trifle, the sauce. Somebody who does not drink, is pregnant, or is driving would like to know before the second helping rather than after.

It is one option on a checklist and it saves an awkward conversation.

Pair it with the gift exchange

Most Christmas potlucks have a Secret Santa attached, and most organisers run them as two separate lists that then disagree with each other. Ask on the same form. One list of who is coming, what they are bringing, and whether they are in the gift exchange.

An office party usually has no kitchen

This is the difference that catches people out. A Christmas potluck at home has an oven, a hob, a fridge and a microwave. The same potluck in a meeting room has a kettle and, if everybody is lucky, one microwave shared with the rest of the floor. Twelve people queueing to reheat lasagne is not a party.

So for an office party the useful question is not what course somebody is bringing, it is whether their dish needs heating at all. Ask it directly and the list sorts itself into things that can sit on a table for two hours and things that cannot. Cold dishes, breads, cured meats, salads, anything in pastry, and desserts that are meant to be room temperature all work. Anything that has to be hot needs a plan before it is offered.

Fridge space runs out faster than oven space in an office. If somebody is bringing anything with cream or mayonnaise in it, they need to know whether there is anywhere to put it between arriving at nine and eating at one.

Not everybody at an office party celebrates Christmas

A workplace of any size includes people who do not mark it, people who do not drink, and people whose dietary rules are not a preference. None of them want to raise it individually, and most will simply eat beforehand and say nothing.

An open box asking whether there is anything you should know about what they can eat handles all three without singling anybody out. It is one line, it is voluntary, and the answers it gets are the ones that would otherwise have arrived as an apology on the day.

Send it in mid-November

December fills up faster than any other month, and an office party competes with every other office party. Mid-November gets you answers; the first week of December gets you apologies.