As darkness fell over the City of London yesterday afternoon, many of the Square Mile's bars were starting to fill with workers having a last Christmas pint with colleagues, or looking to drown their sorrows at the end of another miserable week on the stock markets.

In the plush surroundings of Corney and Barrow, overshadowed by the looming mass of UBS on Broadgate circle, Brian Smith, 30, tried to put his finger on the atmosphere in the city's drinking establishments. "It feels like it's the last hurrah. Everyone knows that next year is going to be tight, and no-one really knows if they'll have a job after Christmas. But still, it is more subdued, more measured." Serving a raft of gin and tonics to a waiting customer, Caroline Little said that for the last week business had been booming. "There is no credit crunch this week. We've perhaps been selling less champagne, people are sticking to beers and spirits. But people don't seem to be counting their pennies."

A nearby group of men, sitting at a table full of beers and a bottle of white wine and looking out on the gleeful faces of people whizzing around the ice-rink below, were less than full of Christmas cheer. Having berated media coverage of the credit crunch and "ambulance chasing" of city workers, one of the group explained the reason the men - all senior credit bankers at a large American investment bank - had gathered. "Basically, we've been screwed on our bonuses, some people here have lost their jobs, so we are going hard on the expenses account. We are as destroyed as anybody but we are just having to get on with it."

Another said he was having to sell his small aircraft: "the only thing that helped me relax from a very stressful job." In the more traditional Bull on Devonshire Row, Matthew Tyler, a 30-year-old insurance broker, was looking a little green and nursing his pint after a very heavy session the night previously. "I was sick five times before I got to work this morning. It's like that in the city at this time of year, recession or not. I've been going out seven nights a week, I'm not even enjoying it anymore." With a little encouragement from his workmates, he recounted just how last night's episode had concluded. Having exchanged cross words with another man outside McDonalds, Tyler had lost his temper. While attempting to throw his bumper sized coke at the man, the unruly container had exploded in his face. Over his colleagues' roar of laughter he said: "I stumbled towards the police but I couldn't see anything, coke was running into my eyes. I spent the next hour trying to get rid of the sticky black stuff all over me."

Taking another small sip of his pint, he added mournfully: "I actually don't enjoy getting hammered. I'm having the month off in January."

In the nearby White Hart, Mike Harrison, who had worked in investment banking for 20 years, was sinking a pint. Wary of being portrayed as a rollicking banker without a care in the world, he said: "The atmosphere is very different in here than it is on the trading floor, I can tell you. I'm doing all right, but there are teams whose jobs are at risk and they have been down here every night drowning their sorrows."

By 10pm the strain was showing. One man sat slumped against a wall, head in hands, a pool of sick at his feet. A woman wobbling in high heels, frantically shouted "Where's my handbag?" as her slightly more sober friend placed it in her hand. Standing at the marble bar in Catch, a sleek City bar next to Liverpool Street station, Graham Woods, a broker for the last 20 years, refused to succumb to the gloom. "Look around. This place - it's recession proof," he said, pointing to the well-dressed clientele sipping on champagne and Martinis. "It is bad, don't get me wrong. But it's still Christmas, people are still going to go out, and they are still going to get pissed. That doesn't change."

• All names have been changed.