Thread: Christmas at the office Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
The season is upon us now. Lunches, parties, pub outings - what will your office/workplace be doing this year? Are you planning to go, and more importantly, are you looking forward to it?

Do you decorate your office, or do you have any particular Christmas traditions?
 

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Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :
 
I told them not to decorate the office/workplace until the last possible minute - not out of Scrooge like feelings, but because many of the kids we work with are in care and not happy about it, so Christmas isn't a good time for them. Christmas decorations surrounding them is insult to injury and likely to trigger a wrecking spree. I saw it happen last year. But I've also asked about the budget for presents and outings.

We get a works do which is fancy dress and pretty much compulsory on the evening of the last day of term which I managed to dodge last year as I was (genuinely) going away at crack of dawn the next day. I'm scrabbling for excuses this year. It's going to follow a day leading training.

We're also all being roped into Secret Santa.

I've also got a District Guide Leaders meal the Friday before that ... which I'll smile and grit my teeth through.
 

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Posted by Rowen (# 1194) on :
 
I work as a minister, for a certain charitable section of my denomination. There is only me, in the whole state.
Tempted as I am, to award myself "employee of tne year" and give myself a great Secret Santa gift, I am content to settle for other things.
All the clergy in my small country town, and spouses, regardless of denomination, are going out to tne fabulous restaurant at the interesting brewery next town over.
 

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Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :
 
I don't have an office so no party.

But the organ loft gets a visit from elves between Evensong on Christmas Eve and Midnight Mass and they decorate the front of the organ cases with plain white lights and red bells.

Between Christmas and new year there is a party organised for/by a bunch of salaried organists which is a closely guarded secret and involves an overnight trip (usually) to Lo**on and a lot of gin...
 

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Posted by cattyish (# 7829) on :
 
We'll have Santa visit us at lunchtime and we'll get our secret Santa presents. There is also a meal out at the local club, but I can't go because I've agreed to sing at something. We have a Christmas tree and since it's Radio 2 in the waiting room there's no escape.

Also several of my workmates are coming to hear me and another colleague sing at a carol concert. I'm looking forward to that more than the parties I think.

Cattyish, rehearsing carefully.
 

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Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :
 
The support staff have booked bowling. The 5 pin Canadian version, so kid friendly. I'd suggested curling, but that's slippery for young ones. We've had a baby boom with some of the younger people. Some catered food to the bowling alley. A bling bag for everyone.
 

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Posted by bib (# 13074) on :
 
Those staff at the hospital who wish to participate go round each ward on Christmas Eve singing a couple of carols in each. As far as the staff room is concerned people bring along yummy food to share and we usually have a Secret Santa in which most take part.
 

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Posted by Piglet (# 11803) on :
 
We usually go out for lunch somewhere and end up in a pub: this year we're starting at Milestones, which has only recently opened. D. and I tried it last week and were v. impressed, so I'm looking forward to it.
 

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Posted by Sipech (# 16870) on :
 
The office varies by floor. Marketing are by far the most garish when it comes to decorations, with tinsel everywhere. Finance are rather more sober but some tat will appear, usually instigated by the PAs.

As for the office party, I shall avoid it like the norovirus. I work with these people every day; why on earth would I want to spend any more time than I have to with them? There's extra incentive to avoid certain people. We have a particular pair of drama queens who want to be the centre of attention because they think that they are interesting, when in fact anyone who thinks they are, invariably isn't.
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
I've organized our Secret Santa so that's under way. We'll most likely be decorating the desks on Monday if everybody in our section's in, as we all enjoy the chance to brighten up the office. Once one section starts, the rest soon follow suit - there's a kind of friendly competition to see who's first off the mark.

Our section's Christmas lunch will be in a small country pub with a reputation for good food. We've already pre-ordered so it's just a question of turning up on the day. They have log fires, which is always a bonus, and I'm hoping we'll get a table near one. The Secret Santa presents will be brought down in a box for distribution then.

We have an office carol concert, devised some years ago by someone who since left to become a professional musician. He comes back each autumn to train up the choir and the concert will take place in a small country church the week before the office closes. It's usually packed out to standing room only, the audience get to join in some of the carols, and there'll be mulled wine and mince pies at the pub afterwards.

There is an office Christmas party which I never go to, but a lot of work goes into it each year - planning starts in the summer. The venue varies from year to year but it usually has a theme. It's entirely voluntary, but most people seem to like going.
 

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Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :
 
If the team I work with was going out for a meal or a drink, I'd willingly go to that, but the almost compulsory Christmas party is company wide, so everyone comes along - from across London and Essex. From the stories of previous dos it gets very boozy and the cliques build into stronger groupings.

And the Guide do is the whole district for all Senior Section, Guide, Brownie and Rainbow leaders.
 

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Posted by M. (# 3291) on :
 
Hmm, we're obviously bah humbug compared to a lot. 5 of us work in the office. No decorations - one chap did put up a tree a few years back but discovered it was just him putting it up and more importantly, taking it down, so that stopped. But a few of us will go out for a meal one evening.

We do have another office oop north, and for a couple of years, we were dragged up there for lunch but then people just started refusing to go, so that's stopped too, thankfully.

M.
 

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Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :
 
I think I will spend the Christmas do on the reception desk in the building I work in. I take a book and read, which I enjoy far more than going to the do. However, I am not against others enjoying themselves but being in a large room with loud music and a couple of hundred other people getting drunk is not my idea of fun.

Jengie
 

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Posted by Pewgilist (# 3445) on :
 
I work at a (state funded) University, specifically in a specialized IT group. We've got Christmas dos right up the chart: a department Christmas lunch at a restaurant, a "Holiday Reception" hosted by the VP, and I think that there is some sort of Holiday Open House at the Student Centre put on by the President's office.

My own department office area has nothing in the way of decorations, though - too many atheists? too many geeks? too many men? Not sure.

But I work out of a satellite office in the Psychology building part of the time, and the main office is decorated and there is a building door-decorating content going on.

And a note on terms: most of the events are labelled "Holiday", not "Christmas", but are generally referred to as "Christmas" things. "Are you coming to the Christmas lunch?" "Have you RSVPed for the Dean's Christmas party?"
 

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Posted by Kitten (# 1179) on :
 
The company I work for puts up two decorated trees, one in reception and one in the main office unit, but not with lights as they would be a fire hazard. Some individuals also decorate their desks with tinsel, and sometimes USB decorations. My team have chocolate advent calendars which we take in turns to open. The last Friday meeting before Christmas usually involves mince pies and cream.

The Christmas party is a formal event at a hotel, until a year ago this was black tie but has now become marginally less formal. I don't go to this, I tend to avoid work based socialising.

For the last three years there has been a secret Santa in my building. Nothing has yet been said this year so I'm hoping it won't happen. I dislike secret Santas but feel I can't decline to participate for feer of being considered mean.
 

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Posted by Darllenwr (# 14520) on :
 
A decorated (including lights) Christmas tree has appeared in the entrance lobby to our main building, set up by our Receptionist.

For the Company Christmas 'do', all and sundry are going to the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff for the evening on Friday (5th). As it happens, we will be burying my wife's uncle that afternoon (also, oddly enough, in Cardiff) which gives me the perfect excuse not to go. Not that I would have done anyway. As an intuitive engineer, I am pretty anti-social and, in any case, a disco and extensive (perhaps that should read, "excessive"?)booze simply does not appeal.
 

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Posted by cattyish (# 7829) on :
 
Come to think of it, I'll be singing at two corporate Christmas do's, and therefore can't go to my own work do. And I'm not sad about that!

Cattyish, still rehearsing carefully but now trying to get over a cough.
 

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Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Ariel:

Do you decorate your office, or do you have any particular Christmas traditions?

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The cabal of secretaries can be relied upon to ensure that the place is bedecked with tinsel and the like.

The organization-wide Christmas party (which we've had some years) tends to be embarrassingly cringe-worthy - it tries not to offend the faith, or lack of faith, of any of the employees (or management), and ends up offending anyone with taste.
 

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Posted by The Rogue (# 2275) on :
 
In the accounts department of our smallish company (fifty employees on two sites) there are six of us in two offices. One person in the other office is quite crazy about all this stuff and that room was decorated a week or so ago. Ours probably won't be except that there is a laminated "You are entering the humbug zone" sign around which will no doubt make an appearance.

She also organises a company-wide Christmas do. I won't be going to that as I really don't like the kind of thing she has planned. Plenty of people do like it so fair enough. The company don't pay anything for it although we do have a payroll deduction savings scheme which started in February.
 

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Posted by Nenya (# 16427) on :
 
The minimum of decorations in our very small office because the boss is bah humbug about Christmas. They go up at the latest possible moment and come down before we all finish for the break so that we don't have to come back to them in January.

This year we have a two day conference and are out for a meal together as a team the evening of the first day. We're having the Christmas menu. That'll be it.
 

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Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
Joys of Retirement no 563 - no sodding Office do. Of all the places I have worked - school, university, library, newspaper, charity, Quango, chartered surveyor, the Civil Service, Parliament - there's not one where I've thought Oh goody, the Christmas lunch!
 

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Posted by Sandemaniac (# 12829) on :
 
Last year I went to the departmental Christmas Party. We went to a college (college halls pale once you've been in a few), had a meal largely consisting of once-good food royally dicked about by a poncy chef, the Director stood up and blathered a bit, then we all went to the bar and attempted to converse over 200 people doing the same. One thing it was not was a party!

This year I really can't be arsed so I'm just going to go to the building one which is at least free if I decide I'm not enjoying myself.

Somehow I can't see us decorating the lab as we'll never shut the militant atheist up, and our boss is crankier than a crankshaft at a crankshaft crankers' convention. Ho hum.

AG
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
I was extremely cranky my last couple years at place X and refrained from decorating my cube at all. Largely because the petted favorites made such a HUGE FREAKING BIG DEAL about it, and I wasn't about to get into a decorating contest.

Come to think of it, I'm still cranky. Bah, humbug.
 

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Posted by Heavenly Anarchist (# 13313) on :
 
I might decorate my office/sewing room perhaps I should have my own party at home too?

I go to my husband's work do, free meal in restaurant or hired venue, which I quite enjoy as I can then work out who he's talking about. And I know a lot of the staff and spouses now anyway as he's been there 15 years.
 

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Posted by MrsBeaky (# 17663) on :
 
Our office closes on 20th and lunch will be held at the farm of one of our diocesan staff and she will cook stew, rice, vegetables and chapatti for more than 30 of us and we will drink sodas with the Bishop.
I am going to make cookies for everyone as I have a (somewhat temperamental) oven.

Karibu Kenya!
 

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Posted by Dennis the Menace (# 11833) on :
 
This is my first Christmas as a retiree so there will be no work 'do', didn't have one for the last two Christmases I was working as the restuarant we always went to closed up and the boss didn't want to go anywhere else!! However, where I do voluntary work hopefully will have some kind of get together.
 

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Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :
 
We do have a choir party - does that count?

After the 9 Lessons we all repair to one choir member's house for a very swanky catered reception (champagne, hot & cold canapes, waiters - the works). When they joined the choir their significant other moaned and made rude comments but said she could invite them round once a year and he'd foot the bill - so he does, a substantial one!
 

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Posted by comet (# 10353) on :
 
Job #1 is shut down for the whole winter with the owner snowbirding in AZ.

Job #2 is at a school so we're closed for two weeks (halle-frickin-lujah!) but will surely be decorated with kiddo art projects out the wazoo and the christmas choir practice has already been inflicting me with earworms for weeks.

Job #3 is new to me (sort of. Long story) and I work very isolated from the rest of staff so I really have no idea what they'll be up to.

The community as a whole takes the holidays to an extreme, though - sledding parties and a decorated fishing boat parade and parties and open houses and the annual visit of the Ice Dragon (nope, not kidding) so it makes up for any lack elsewhere. I'm directing the annual Christmas variety show this year.

Any other parties would just wear me out.
 

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Posted by Uncle Pete (# 10422) on :
 
Just to give you some idea about my opinions. When my kids were little I did the whole decoration thing, because they would have been upset, otherwise.

As far as work goes, I enjoyed a Christmas lunch with my staff, avoided the divisional and departmental parties like the plague* and refused to have my area decorated. When it was done when I was absent, I asked that it all be taken down. It was. The last Christmas I worked, someone snuck a piece of tinsel into the ceiling tiles. I noticed but ignored it. It was still up when I retired the following May.

As a general rule, I do not decorate at home. Why bother when it is only me?

*the only time I cheerfully went to one was after the great Public Service strike in 1991. Management had offered a catered lunch, but we turned it down; instead we did a whip-around ($5 maximum) and booked the local legion hall, with a pay-bar and bar food. It was a nice time. We played cards and scrabble and chess and such things. No managers or ministers in sight. Dinners resumed after a few years, but I mostly ignored them. No loss.
 

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Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on :
 
Apparently there are some xmas decs lurking somewhere for making our tiny little back office in an NHS day surgery department a bit more festive. One of my colleagues adores Disney stuff, so our advent calendar is a Minnie Mouse one. Apparently it is also a work tradition to have an in-house party for staff and children - food, activities and pressies, and the admin procurement officer dressed as Santa.

For the adults, we have a Christmas dinner - with live music - booked for an evening, in a decent restaurant.

Xmas eve will feature a couple of lists of OGDs and colonoscopies, thanks to the intransigence of the consultant rota-ed for that afternoon, who refused every opportunity offered him to swap it to another time. Which means our wonderful nurses will be cleaning scopes till six at night that evening. The Christmas spirit is a little strained with regard to that gentleman, just at the moment!
 

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Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
School used to have have two dos - Christmas dinner when the children had it, and a booked meal out one evening. After a few years, the use of alcoholic beverages at the school dinner ceased. After I retired, I was invited to join the staff at the out dinner, and at a bring and share lunch on the last day, which was nice. I don't know many people there now it's been academised, so that doesn't happen any more.
I do decorate at home, even only for me. Lit trees that I used to have in the classroom, especially if I am going to be away, as a sign that I'm not. And some corn stalk things from Lidl, and a couple of lit wreaths, one of which I made out of a wire coat hanger, a la Blue Peter.
 

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Posted by jedijudy (# 333) on :
 
We'll actually have a Christmas party this year. Our pastor is cooking and entertaining us at the parsonage. We're to bring an appetizer and a funny white elephant.

Now, to find that special something that someone is dying to have!

Oh, I'm putting up my Charlie Brown Christmas tree in the choir room, too.
 

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Posted by M. (# 3291) on :
 
Ah! The coat hanger wreath! That takes me back to a tangent - for some reason, my father was inspired by Blue Peter to make the coat hanger wreath and laboured long at it, decorating it most carefully and hanging it proudly in the sitting room. My (at that time) not-quite sister in law walked in and without missing a beat said casually, 'Like the coathangers'.

Collapse of stout party.

M.
 

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Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :
 
As I am a supply teacher with several different schools, I don't get a party as such, but a club we belong to will be going out to dinner at a local Italian restaurant next week. Also the choir that my wife and I are in shall be performing at the local Irish Cultural Center on the 21st; adult beverages may be served afterwards...

Beyond that, one of our local Shipmates has a Christmas party for friends every year...
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Uncle Pete:
As a general rule, I do not decorate at home. Why bother when it is only me?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dormouse:
I may put fairy lights round my computer...

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I've just bought some for my computer whilst doing the weekly shop this morning working from home, I need those kind of pleasures to keep me sane (my sons have bright red flashing hearts around their computer all year, left over from one Valentine's day ).
Talking wreaths, I'm involved in a wreath swap on another board and I made one last week out of torn strips of fabric tied to a double metal ring (coat hanger style!) and I added a copper die cut sparrow to nest in it.
 

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Posted by Beethoven (# 114) on :
 
The admin & domestic staff here apparently have an annual Christmas meal at which they do a Secret Santa. Despite working in admin here for 3 years, I haven't yet been invited... I'm not fussed, though - I'd probably go along, but am not sitting and sobbing in a corner at the thought of being forgotten again!

Like Curiosity Killed... we'll have an evening out with the District Guiders, and I'll definitely want to go to that since they're a good bunch round here.
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Dormouse:
I may put fairy lights round my computer...

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Some of my colleagues have done that. Personally I think it's a bit distracting, but they seem happy.

I've seen some little (about 6" high) USB Christmas trees that can be plugged into desktops - might look out for one of those.
 

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Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
If there is free food on my college campus, and I don't have to change my schedule to pop by to scrounge some, I'll go for it.

If it's an Event--hell, no. I try to keep my professional and personal life separate.
 

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Posted by JoannaP (# 4493) on :
 
Nothing for me this year. The days of being anal about ensuring that everyone who was a member of the team during the year gets invited to the Christmas do are long gone
 

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