Forced to go on a “fun” retreat with coworkers? What to do?

We have a work environment rife with politics due to one extremely unpleasant coworker. Our boss knows this perfectly well. Rather than addressing the issue properly by firing the bad apple, he has decided to force us all to be friends instead. What he does not realize is that we are all pretty decent friends except for the one person, which is where he gets 99% of his information and who tells him all the things that are wrong with HER relationship with others, failing to realize nobody else has a problem at all. It’s like thinking your whole body is injured because it hurts every time you touch something – but it turns out the only thing injured is your hand. This person is the injured hand. To this end, he has instructed this impossible individual to organize a “retreat”. She has decided that we will all be woken up at some godawful hour in the morning to get together for the entire day and “have fun”, Impossible Person style. To all of us this sounds like a waking nightmare. We are supposed to participate in ACTIVITIES designed to “build social skills”. I don’t know if I will be able to entirely conceal my vast displeasure at being obliged to do this. The problem is obvious to everyone, but when one of my favorite coworkers pointed out to my boss that this one person was the source of the vast majority of problems, he declared, “Yeah, everyone complains about her, but there’s no way I’d ever fire her.” Apparently she does a lot of bureaucratic paperwork that nobody else will do. I also know for a fact this is where he gets the vast majority of his negative gossip about things she “overhears”. My boss thrives on gossip. I believe his intentions are good, and that he relies on this person for information. He just doesn’t realize that his information is coming from an ugly, wicked-minded human being and therefore has no basis in reality. Our work environment is FINE. Except for her!

My social skills with my other coworkers do not need development. We hang out and enjoy each others’ company. Moreover, I have work to do. We all got an email pretty much demanding we attend however, and bring freaking GIFTS for each other, and a lot of other rot, all for this one loser to feel better about herself. I am perfectly aware we are all under the microscope to “perform” and act like highly social, agreeable little monkeys in front of our boss. My question is, how do we do this? None of my friendly coworkers has any idea, and neither do I. If you do, I’d be glad to listen.