Author: Deidre B.

Why You Should Send Personalized Christmas Cards

I remember that day in November, I was feeling down after I got that call from the school to come pick my daughter up, she had a fever and was very sick, the flu. We’d just gotten home from the doctor’s and I was worrying because I knew I couldn’t take off from work, this was our busy season and we couldn’t afford to move one person from their assigned jobs to cover mine. Later that night, the doorbell rang. It was my “evil” next door neighbor who having heard that my daughter was sick, came by to offer her help, volunteering to baby-sit while I work, and to do so in my home so I wouldn’t have to take my daughter out. She didn’t want anything in return.

My car had a flat, I don’t know anything about changing a tire. A man whom I’d see but never met volunteered his help but wouldn’t accept any payment. These are the times you send a personalized Christmas card, to people who have gone that extra mile for the sake of kindness and you want to let them know you thank them for that.

A Personalized Christmas Card can speak volumes when you want to acknowledge an act of kindness or just to say “I’m wishing you a very special holiday season” because you’ve been so kind. And then who knows, you just might make that Scrooge-like someone believe in spirit of Christmas.

Some of Our Favorite Company Christmas Party Ideas

Ugly Sweater Parties. Secret Santa. Grab Bags. Non-Denominational Holiday Brunches. After Hours Eggnog-and-Mulled-Wine Shindigs.

At least one of those things is made-up, but the others are some of my favorite company Christmas party ideas.

Company Christmas Party Ideas

Well, I say favorite but I might be fibbing just a little bit. I’m not a big believer in mandatory gift-giving in one’s place of business, unless the spending limit is hilariously low and people know to have fun with it (i.e., everybody buys a joke gift from the dollar store). Because, hey, we’ve all been in that awkward situation where there’s an office Secret Santa and it’s “To Be Taken Seriously”, but you don’t know the person you got all that well and everybody walks away disappointed.

I feel it’s best to avoid that situation altogether.

My absolute favorite kind of office party is one where there’s decent food (catered or informal pot luck, it doesn’t matter), but not a lot of formal structure. It’s supposed to be a party; let the people unwind and make their own fun. By all means, encourage silly outfits. But don’t go so far as to make anything Mandatory™.

Really, the best Christmas party idea anyone can give you is to not over-plan your company party. Just toss up some decorations, put out some food, and see what happens.

Great Christmas Decorations For The Office

OK, so your office isn’t decorated that great for the Christmas holidays. I’ll tell you what we did in our office. Our Admin department took a look around and noticed that most teams had some little Christmas decorations here and there, but nothing spectacular. So, they decided to have a Christmas Wreath decorating contest.

Office_Christmas_Wreath

This is a great idea to bring in some fun, competition with each other, and some great Christmas decorations. Our company supplied all the bare artificial green wreaths, 30” in width, and $25.00 to each department in the company who wanted to participate in the contest. That money was to go towards the decorations on the wreath. They told us that the 1st place winning department would receive a nice luncheon. There were other 2nd and 3rd place prizes given also.

We could do any type of theme or design we wanted. There could be a Christmas idea wreath, a Christmas sports wreath, a wreath that had something to do with what you do in your department, just to give you examples. We either worked on the wreath together as a department or chose someone in the department to do the whole wreath! It really was a lot of fun and we had a great little competition going with each other.

When the due date came for the wreaths to be finished, we were all so surprised how great they all looked. They were all so different. They were put up on the walls in each department that competed, and they all competed by the way! We all got into this contest and the competition was pretty tough too, but everyone had a fun time with it and when it was all finished we couldn’t get over how great our office looked for Christmas!

Hope you have a little competition in your office, you will be nicely decorated!