Ugh, I hate work functions out of hours too. I generally try to avoid them, and most of my co-workers understand that if it's a weekend I have DD I'm not going to sacrifice my time with her for their benefit - after all, I see them 5 days a week, I see DD 2 days a fortnight.

I do make the effort to go to the odd one or two, usually if someone I work closely with is celebrating something or is leaving and it's a goodbye dinner or so on. I don't think I've ever gone to the whole of company Christmas party yet, and I've been there 5 years! The main thing for me is that they are all "no partners/family" events, and I've raised it several times with the work social club to say could we have some family friendly events but to no avail. So meh, they can live without me