Great Holiday Traditions for the Office

The holiday season is a busy season for everyone but it is fun to bring some of the fun into the office or workplace. I have experienced many different holiday traditions in many different workplaces and some were more fun than others.

Some office places have a holiday party set up for their employees. This usually happens in big companies. Smaller companies or workplaces often have to arrange and pay for their own holiday dinner get-togethers and this can become expensive for some. There are ways, of course, to keep the prices down such as a potluck where each employee brings a dish to a party that is held in a conference room at the office place. But, if you want to do something more or something different, there are fun gift giving traditions that you can start at your office this year and continue for many years to come. They can be as expensive or as frugal as you and your office-mates choose for them to be!

Of course, there is the simple "Pollyanna" or "Secret Santa" tradition that many workplaces participate in. This is simple and can be done in almost any time of work setting. Simply, each participant picks a name of another participant from a hat (or other vessel). That person then buys a gift for the person whose name that they have drawn. There may be rules or there may not be but they need to be discussed ahead of time if so. Some rules might include a price limit and the type of gift to be bought (i.e. gift cards, gag gifts, useful gifts, etc). Some workplaces might have each person post a list of possible items that they would like to receive in a place where everyone can view it. Some might just pass around questionnaires that tell the likes and dislikes of the person (the whole questionnaire can be folded up and put in the hat and when each person draws a name, they have the questionnaire that pertains to that person). One possible variation would have each person leaves a clue or note each week for the person whose name they have drawn until the last week when all gifts are exchanged and names are revealed.

A different idea would be to have a cookie exchange with your office-mates. Based on the number of participants, each person will make up a certain number of cookies. For example, if there are 10 participants, each participant will bake, say 60 cookies. They will then divide those cookies into zipper bags. In my example, there would be 10 bags of 6 cookies each. On the day of the exchange each person would have a plate and each participant would place their bag of cookies on it so that each person would go home with 10 bags of different cookies. In addition, each person should write out the recipe for their cookies and distribute it to each participant for future use. Each person then has a nice platter of cookies and a recipe booklet (if you staple all of the recipes together) to share with their family!

Another great holiday tradition that I have participated in is also fun. Participants each must bring a gift to a get-together that is planned. It can be a simple get together at someone's house or in a conference room at the workplace or at a restaurant. When I participated in this tradition, the gift you were supposed to bring was something you already had. It could be a gift that someone had given to you in the past that you had no use for or it could be something you made or it could be something you had but just had no use for anymore, like a pretty platter that took up room and you never used. You couldn't bring anything that no one would have any use for such as a torn t-shirt or worn out Tupperware with missing lids, etc. You get the idea.

The gift you brought to the get-together had to be wrapped and then each gift was put on a table in the middle of the circle of participants. Each participant would then draw a number from a hat. The numbers would start at one and go as high as the number of participants. The number you drew is your place in the drawing. So, the person that draws number one would get to pick the first present from the pile. That participant would then open the gift and show the others. The person with number two would then pick a present and that participant would open the gift. He would then have to choose whether to keep the present or exchange it for one that someone else had opened before you. Thus, the person with the largest number would have the most leverage and would get to choose any present he wanted. This sounds like it could get ugly but with the right group of people, it really was great fun and a tradition we followed for many years at the job I worked at!

Whatever you decide to do, make sure that everyone understands the rules and financial obligations before getting started. If everyone understands that the object is for fun and everyone spends an equivalent amount of money, it will be a great tradition that you can carry on for many years!