Bounenkai - a year end party in Japan

Bounenkai is a party, where work colleagues or friends gather and drink some alcohol with filling food around the end of the year.
The purpose of this party, especially with colleagues, is to have fun with your workmates or bosses in a frank atmosphere and forget about bad things which occurred during the year. This in the hope that, people might be more motivated in the new year and be ready to start a new year with refreshed attitude and hopefully advance a positive emphasis on their work , for example more productivity, more efficiency, and so on.

Today, I hosted a bounenkai at my home with my employees. My business partner and I run a small vet clinic in Osaka, and employ five vet technicians. In Japan, the allowance on blood alcohol concentration level is set extremely low, therefore it means that one can NOT drive when having consumed any kind of alcohol. My house is located on top of a small mountain where it is hard to reach without driving a car, so our party today was alcohol free; even though, we spent a good time cooking/eating/chatting together.
Our vet clinic operates 365 days, so we still have more than a week to work this year, but it was still a good head up for 2013!