Yesterday was my work office party. Why so early you ask? Well, there are several reasons we (and by we I mean my boss) decided to have the party this week. The first reason is that as I mentioned in another post my work place is going through major changes and we have 10 new people starting next Monday morning. (Basically they closed down our call center and moved those positions to the campus). The majority of the office wanted to have our party before all the new people came ... there are already 14 people in my office so that's a pretty big party anyways. Imagine adding 10 more complete strangers to the mix ... ahhhhh. The second reason it was decided to have the party early is because in addition to the new people starting next week, half of our office is in training for the new changes Monday through Thursday. And lastly, again because of the changes, our office will be closed next Friday to allow them to take down all of our cubicles and reconstruct the entire office to accommodate the new arrivals. This means that the rest of us will be working 4 ten hour days on Monday through Thursday. Hence, no time or desire to have a holiday party next week. And the following week is the week of Christmas and the ladies in my office are far too busy to make time for a party.
The party was held at our boss's house, which was nice because that meant that the alcohol could freely flow. In addition, somehow she convinced our campus president that because we were also doing some team building exercises (i.e. holiday games) we needed to close our office 2 hours early at 3:00pm. He was totally on board!! I don't even want to know how she made that happen. So at 3 we all closed up shop and headed out to the boss's house.
There was lots of food and of course drinks to go around. I stuck to pop. It's always safer that way as I tend to get "loose lips" when I drink and lord only knows what kind of a fool I would have made of myself then. We decided that eating was the first order of business and quickly dived into the many treats we had all contributed. After the food we played our "team building" games. Good thing too cause wouldn't you know, the campus president showed up just before we started them. And thankfully there were only 2 games and it felt eerily like a bridal shower.
Finally we were ready for the whole purpose of having the office party, the GIFT WAR. We have played the gift war every year for the past 4 years and every year it provides a few hours of fun and entertainment. See, we all bring a wrapped gift to the party (somewhere in the $15-$20 range). Everyone who brings a gift has their name placed in a hat/bucket/bowl and the game is started when the host picks the first name out of the hat. That person then chooses a present to open. Once she opens the present and displays for all to see, she chooses the next name. The next person gets to either open a present, or can steal the present the first person opened. This continues until all presents have been opened. If your present gets stolen, then you get the opportunity to either steal someone else's present or open a new one. Once a new present is opened, the next name is pulled and the game continues. This game can be quite fun as certain presents are highly sought after and can change hands many times throughout the game. The more people you have the more fun it is too.
Another aspect of the game is being the person who brings the most sought after gift. You know how there are people out there that just know how to pick the perfect gift? Well in this game, that person gets so much self satisfaction out of having the gift that everyone wanted to have. And for us, there was no exception to that. It's always best too to be the last person to choose because you get to set off a whole series of steals over the most coveted gifts.
I always feel bad for the person (people) who pick a gift to open that no one else wants and they get stuck with it. It's almost always my experience that the first person and the person who finally picks the last gift end up with the worst gifts. Ok, not the worst gifts, but the gifts that no one else seems to want. And not only was yesterday our office Christmas party but it was also my 5 year anniversary with the company. Go me!! That is how I ended up being the one to pick first. Last year I got to pick last which was great!!
By the end of the night the most coveted gift was about 4 different items. The first being a bottle of wine. The second being a bottle of wine and wine accessories. The third was a miscellaneous bag of candles and pretty candle holders. The fourth was a basket with snowmen votive holders and a plug in star with snowmen painted on the front. It's amazing how competitive these girls got over a bottle of wine .. lol. I ended up with none of these. I picked a reed diffuser set that sits on a plate with rocks and two votive candle holders. It was pretty and would have looked nice in my home. In the end though I felt bad for another girl who picked a stuffed dog and big can of popcorn. Her kids are in high school and she had no one she could even regift to, so I traded knowing that I have a seven year old nephew who would absolutely love a new stuffed friend and could eat popcorn night and day.
In the end, it was a really nice party and fun was had by all. Now it's back to the daily grind and all the craziness the holidays bring. Along with all the craziness that adding 10 new coworkers to our office will entail. Wish me luck!!!
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