An Insightful Christmas

For the most part, I am not a huge fan of Christmas. As a single adult it only makes me feel more alone and I hate how the time of year has become so commercialized. Last year I spent most of my time being miserable. This year I was determined to make the best of it. As an Office Manager for an exhibit company, I am in charge of planning the Christmas festivities. Last year I started planning the luncheon two days before. After being mocked about my "Scrooge" attitude, I was determined to not let that happen again. My attitude and involvement this year was a complete 180, and it felt great! I can actually say that I had fun this year.

I decided this year to put my skills to work and create a digital slideshow. Whether they admit it or not, people love to see pictures....maybe not of themselves, but I find that pictures have a way of bringing out the smiles. So I recruited our receptionist to help me go around and take pictures of everyone wearing a festive hat. Most of the employees really got into it and the slideshow turned out great!

Another thing I was put in charge of was what I like to call "Daily Festive Treats." In the past we have assigned a couple of employees each day to bring in some sort of festive treat. It makes December a really fun time of year. Treats always make people happy! But this year we decided to do a pot luck luncheon, so we vetoed the daily treats. However, after a week of no daily treats, we decided that it had to be done, for morale purposes. So the company pitched in and I got to make sure that every day there was something yummy for everyone to eat. It was a lot of work, but I highly enjoyed seeing the happy smiling faces.

Another thing I was in charge of was decorating the Christmas Tree. It would have been easy to go to the dollar store and pick out some decorations, but I wanted a tree with personality. So we challenged all of the employees to bring in or make an ornament that would represent something about the individual. I was so pleased with how the tree turned out. We had some really great and creative ornaments on our tree.

A few examples of the ornaments:

A bag of sawdust, a cookie, some candy

And of course....a Shamrock (my not so obvious contribution)

I will admit, I am glad that the holidays are coming to a close and I am looking forward to getting back into my daily routine at work and not so much overtime....and shopping.