12/7/15- The Work Holiday Party

Work holiday parties can be so much fun!  In fact, one of my all time favorite holiday party was a work one.  We dressed to the nines, I wore this fabulous red gown, and it was at the Arizona Buttes. There was good food (steak if I remember correctly) and drinks, professional photos, dancing and fake gambling because the theme of the holiday party was Vegas.  At the end of the night you could use your fake winnings to get raffle tickets and win actual prizes!  It was a lot of fun, and you felt valued as an employee because they cared enough to throw this fancy shin dig for you.

My current place of business, specifically my department as it's up to the individual departments to throw the parties, cannot afford such a nice party, and that is okay.  Because what we lack in budget, we make up for in spirit and creativity.  We have fun games (make up a holiday song, have a whole team act out a holiday song, holiday bake off, etc!), decent food, cool decorations, tons of ugly sweaters and merriment.  And the person who organizes it every year, her excitement about the party is just so contagious, it's hard not to be excited yourself and to want to help out.  I've helped out for the past 3 years and have had a blast.

Aunt Bethany's Jello Mold for This Year's Work Holiday Part
(Let's see who gets it at work)

But this year, I just wanted to go as a participant, not a volunteer.  It's been a tough health wise this year, so I wanted to sit back and enjoy this year's holiday party.  Not stress about one more thing I'm responsible for-  about whether or not I'd remember to pick up the decorations.  Plus, call me a McScrooge, but I didn't want to spend my own money on decorations (if you can't tell, I got tasked with the decorations this year, which isn't the biggest part of the party, but still a task).  I supposed I can get reimbursed, but the $10-$15 I spent at the dollar store isn't worth all the electronic paper work.

We also don't get paid to plan the party, we have to do it on our own time.  So on top of needing extra sleep (thanks R.A.), work, and enjoying my family, I have to squeeze in helping out this year's party.  No thank you.  Not this year, I said to myself last week.  BUT I did it anyway because I'm a sucker.  D'oh!  Hopefully next year, there will be some new people that can be roped into  help with the planning, and I can finally enjoy one of these things without the worry and the criticism.  Oh yeah, did I mention it's mostly engineers at this party?  Some engineers can be seriously unimpressed by all the hard work you did to bring them a festive fete (I think some are born without a funny bone, true story).

The only good thing about the upcoming work party is that there will be free food!  What? I'm an engineer after all; we love free food (it's really how projects get done).  Anyway, I hope you truly enjoy any upcoming holiday parties, and I can't wait for my holiday vacation!  Enjoy the season!