An ode to the old-fashioned publishing holiday party, in photos.

Publishing people used to corner the market on yuletide bacchanals. You hear stories. Decadence was expected. HR, AWOL. In last year’s Cut, Emily Gould interviewed partygoers from previous epochs and turned up all sorts of outrageous anecdotes. Back in the day, years ended in the red with an abundance of “Outfits! Hams! [and] Indoor smoking!”

There are plenty of good reasons to mark the end of the workplace rager. But this holiday season, I can’t help but clock a little wist for those storied fetes at Condé Nast or The Village Voice. In the nostalgic spirit, here’s a glimpse of the publishing office Christmas party, through the years. (With thanks to the archive!)

New York Daily News employees break it down at a Christmas shindig in 1937.

Photo by Rex Hardy.

Natty dressers circulate at Life, 1938. (Note the silver fixings. You’d never see that, now.)

Image via the NYPL.

Here, Barbara Gittings, LGBTQ activist and editor of The Ladder, sets the scene for a cozy celebration. This one feels accurate to most of my office party experience.

Photo by Leonard Freed. Courtesy of Life Photo Collection.

Some more unprofessional nonsense at the Time Life building, sometime in the 60s.

Photo by Fran Vogel.

Downtown camaraderie at the East Village Eye’s 1985 to-do.

Photo by Bob Gruen.

>Max’s Kansas City was always a party. But their annual Christmas dinner was a special hoot. (And considering the poet Richard Hell was in attendance, we call it a get for publishing.)

Helen Gurley-Brown, of Cosmopolitan, lights up the dance floor at one of her famous celebrations.

Photo by Ozier Muhammad.

Si Newhouse and Tina Brown cozy up at one of the former’s similarly storied soirees.

Photo from the Robert Altman/Michael Ochs archives.

The late editor Ed Ward and John Northland (left) at the Rolling Stone Christmas party, 1970.

Photo by Chester Higgins.

And Maya Angelou and Amiri Baraka kick off 1991 at the Schomburg Center.

We needn’t despair, really. Michael Musto is apparently still out in these streets. And recently, Addison Rae has been known to crash magazine Christmas, and the McInerneys hosted a hullabaloo for old guard literati not 48 hours ago. I believe the spirit of the holiday party will live on, so long as media people gravitate toward binge drinking.

Should you be lucky enough to raise a glass in the office this week, just remember: keep it classy.

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