The holiday season is just around the corner, and that means the office holiday party will soon be here.

Truly, it's the happiest time of the year.

The CEO dons a Santa Claus suit. This year, two pillows will be required to create that Santa belly. The CEO spends so much time on their Peloton bike their body mass index is a minus 10.

As for the sleigh, you can furlough the reindeers. Elon Musk has a new electric sleigh coming off the production line at Tesla, and management surely put in a preorder last summer. If they didn't, someone's head is going to roll.

Hope it isn't yours.

My favorite part of the annual holiday party is when "Santa" climbs up on a desk and congratulates all the employees for the wonderful job they've done. And that well-deserved praise even goes to the 70% of the staff that had to be laid off in August.

With these heartwarming words, the boss announces end-of-the-year bonuses for one and all. No checks this year — the bonuses are delivered by hand from a coin dispenser attached to Santa's big black belt. And what a joy it is to see those nickels and dimes drop into your palm while your co-workers gather around, drooling with holiday joy and envy.

The final holiday surprise is waiting in your inbox — a plump turkey to bring home and share with your family. This year, it happens to be a scrawny chicken, but hey — when it comes to poultry, it's the thought that counts.

Yes, that's the holiday party you would have this year if you were living in a Jimmy Stewart movie, which you aren't, and could leave your house, which you can't. (It is possible that the boss put that turkey in the mail to you, but considering how backed up the postal service is, you'd probably get it sooner if they put a stamp on the turkey's waddle and let it loose on the freeway.)

But let's not be Debbie Downers. Let's be Ursula Uppers and concoct the ingredients of a holiday party you can have at home alone.

Putting a pointy paper hat on a lampshade is all you need to do to replicate one essential part of every office holiday party — the endless conversation with a boring employee you never saw before from a department you never heard of before. With Lampy taking the place of the generic office bore, you listen to its mindless blather, until you can invent a reasonable excuse to leave, like a coronary.

A bowl of sparkling, nonalcoholic punch is another essential element you can recreate for your home-alone office holiday party. Here's an easy recipe:

Mix a flagon of Trader Joe's organic vodka spaghetti sauce with a 32-ounce bottle of diet Mountain Dew. Garnish with six live guppies and a carnation.

When the party is over, you can throw out the punch, liberate the guppies and eat the carnation.

Speaking of eating, the office party potluck hits its apotheosis at this special holiday event, so you'll have to up your snack game to the max. You will never be able to equal the festive cookies that Stanley in IT brings ever year, but you can achieve a reasonable facsimile by emptying a bag of Chips Ahoy onto a paper plate and covering each cookie with a thick layer of Gorilla Glue. A dusting of sprinkles and you've got a party-pleasing cookie you can't put down — ever.

Nobody knows the ingredients in the gloomy casserole that Emily in HR brings to the party every year, but if you boil charcoal briquets in beef gravy and, at the last minute, add a soupcon of marbles, you would have a reasonable facsimile of the dish, and the intestinal fire storm that inevitably follows eating it.

For all the work you can do to recreate the annual holiday office party at home, you never will be able to duplicate the joy of the real thing. Being the only attendee, you won't be able to make an awkward and unforgivable pass at the partner of the CFO or embarrass yourself by showing off your break-dancing moves.

Most of all, you won't be able to do the one thing that makes every office holiday party worthwhile: You won't be able to slip out the back and go home early.

Lost in a holiday haze of your own making, you may not notice it, but you're already home.

Bob Goldman was an advertising executive at a Fortune 500 company. He offers a virtual shoulder to cry on at bob@bgplanning.com. To find out more about Bob Goldman and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: anncapictures at Pixabay