the tree decorating contest, the panda onesie, and other deranged stories of holidays at work

Here are 15 of my favorite stories you shared about holidays at work over the past month.

1. The succulent

For several years I managed a team who were all at individual satellite offices. During my site visits over the holidays, I gave them all little gift baskets which included a small, fake succulent (most of the offices didn’t have windows). On a subsequent visit about six months later, I found out that one employee had been watering hers every day, and was proud to show me how healthy it still looked.

Fortunately, she thought it was hilarious when she found out it was artificial, and it brought the whole team a lot of joy.

2. The panda onesie

Our new vice president, after a tumultuous and unpopular first year in her role, hosted a holiday party for her whole division at a local upscale steakhouse. We received no less than six emails leading up to the party getting ever more specific about the dress code. First it was just holiday sweaters. Then, the mandate that our sweaters be “Company Name-Licious,” and somehow increasingly downhill from there in service of taking a perfect photo for the holiday card we send out annually to stakeholders.

My director, who after over 20 years at the institution announced his early retirement right before the party (largely because of said vice president’s shenanigans), decided to go out with a bang. Right before we were all corralled together for the carefully cultivated “look at our happy work family having fun photo,” he slipped out of the dining room and returned dressed in a full-body adult pajama panda onesie. Nobody said anything as the picture was taken, but the looks exchanged were priceless!!

Maybe the vice president didn’t have the verbiage on the spot to publicly ask one of her directors to change out of panda pajamas. (Understandable. Who among us is prepared for that?) Maybe she thought he would say “just kidding,” change, and her prize photo would go on (He didn’t. Fully committed to the bit). Needless to say, the photo didn’t make it to the holiday card, but remains a cherished memory for those of us our legendary director left behind.

3. The harp

A couple of years ago, my boss had a Very Fancy Christmas drinks at his house, complete with musicians, waiters, the lot. It was also my third day on the job as the (then) youngest person at the company, and I proceeded to get absolutely hammered.

I woke up the next morning remembering a couple of bad incidents – including kissing my boss on the cheek to say goodbye and spilling wine all over the carpet – but the worst blow came about six months after the party where I was informed that at one point I’d tried to play the harp. Until that point, I would have sworn up and down that I’d never touched a harp in my life.

The next one is tomorrow, so wish me luck.

4. The cover story

Fifteen+ years ago, I worked with Ben and Jen, who were clearly having an affair. She reported to him, he was married, and they were “best friends.” At our holiday party, they disappeared. I walked through the parking lot with a coworker and we saw them in his car fully making out. To our credit, and my surprise, we didn’t say anything at the time. She was later fired for stealing money, and he quit a few months later. A few years ago, another former colleague ran into Jen who proceeded to joke about how “funny” it was that we all thought she was sleeping with Ben, “even though they weren’t.” My friend said, “Someone saw you making out at a holiday party.” Jen didn’t even miss a beat and responded, “I guess I have to change my story.”

5. The putt putt course

I worked in a law office where, at the holiday party (basically, hors d’oeuvres in the conference room on a Friday with our comprehensive bar open to all comers), someone set up a 36-hole golf course that wound through the entire firm. We were given putters, a ball (which we marked with a colored Sharpie), a scorecard, and then set out to drive for show and putt for dough — well, presents. This after we’d all had a few. Technically, many, many more than a few.

Those who’ve worked in law offices know the litigators are always ready to party, but that transactional lawyers, at year’s end, are laboring to close deals that clients want done for tax reasons. This means there’s usually a group of transactional lawyers and their harried staff grinding away while everyone else is carrying on at the holiday party. This was no different, except that the transactional teams were confined to the offices on the floor below the main floor of the firm. This is relevant because the putt-putt setup required you to pick up your ball and take the elevator down to play middle 12 holes of the course on the floor below. Which seemed okay until some drunken associate banked his golf ball off a window, knocked over a transactional partner’s coffee cup, and soaked the latest contract draft. Nearby, two boisterous litigation partners got into a loud, not-so-friendly argument about whether the rules allowed gimme putts.

Before the scene could descend further, a mature paralegal who had been with the firm since before dirt was a baby, strode through the offices, quietly removed putters and balls from all involved, and firmly instructed anyone who wasn’t on the transactional team to return to the conference room upstairs. She then locked the office suite’s doors behind us and, for good measure, hung a “golf course closed” sign on the exterior door.

Later, I heard that the senior transactional partner gifted her a $250 bottle of single malt.

6. The elephant dung

Our CEO is big on eco-friendly type gifts from charities. Frankly I would have been fine with them donating to literally anything in my name, but last year we got statues of rescue elephants made out of elephant dung. Not fresh, but like sculpted like clay and fired but no thank you. I’m not a big elephant or figure person and I’m an even less bigger shit person so that was fun. I’m excited to see what we get this year. Coprolites? Stationary made out of poop (that’s a thing)? Can’t wait.

7. The Funko Pop interrogation

One year during a white elephant exchange at our staff party, I “stole” a Funko Pop from a coworker, who proceeded to throw a fit and grill me for an entire afternoon about why I needed it, what I was going to use it for, did I even know what it was, etc., etc., etc…

8. The revenge

My team was pretty fractured. We had a manager who was your BFF until you became the Bad Employee, and everything in the job/company/world became Bad Employee’s fault until they quit in defeat. The manager’s friends in real life were on our team and were never the Bad Employee. She was a middle-aged Regina George.

At one point Regina had left her zoom camera on unintentionally and she looked a mess. Hair in a bun, brown stained tank top, no makeup, just rolled out of bed. She was also vaping with an obviously THC vape pen.

Jacinta, the current Bad Employee, took a screenshot of Regina during this meeting and just kept it in her pocket for MONTHS.

Secret Santa meeting arrives and Regina opens her gift, from Jacinta, and it’s a custom printed coffee mug. With the photo of Regina on it.

When Regina opened the box she said, “Oh a coffee mug?” and her face went through several shades of red and horror.

But the COO attending the Secret Santa meeting with us said, “Oh a cute coffee mug? How fun! Let everyone see!”

9. The MLM

I had a student bring me a gift. His mother was in an MLM that sold adult products. She had sent me some highly inappropriate “toys” and “lotions” with a card that said she’d love to have a party for me and “all my teacher friends.”

Fortunately, I did not open this in front of the student and I’m hoping he never knew what was in the bag.

10. The decorations

I was working in a newsroom at the time, and there were no accepted rules of behavior in a place where the photogs routinely slept on the floor so they could be first to the scene when the police scanner started popping off in the middle of the night.

We all had assigned desks, and at Christmas everyone got a small fake tree and we had a “decorating contest.” Except that I thought it was lovely decorating and bought ornaments and tinsel … only to find that it was a deranged decorating contest.

One of my coworkers topped her tree with the decapitated head of a one-eyed doll. Another got a box of donuts and stuck them all over the tree, leaving them there until they petrified. Others included cursed promotional items that got sent to us, like a tape measure specifically for measuring bust size, a body-positive doll who was naked and posed suggestively with the Grinch, and a rubber giraffe.

These decorations stayed up until March. God, I miss that place.

11. Sharlene

We had Secret Snowflake. There was a $25 cap, but we were meant to gift our Secret Snowflake something every day of the work week, so it was impossible to keep to the limit and no one kept to it. I would spend a minimum of $50-100.

Anyway, there was one person, “Sharlene,” who thought she walked on water because her wedding went viral on TikTok. On her Secret Snowflake gift form, all of her gifts were designer brands. We were teachers. No one could afford that list. Not even admin. The unfortunate soul who did pull her name sent a student to deliver the first gift (a very nice, non-designer candle in Sharlene’s purported favorite sent). Sharlene sent the child back with the message to deliver: “I don’t accept trash. Give me cash or what I asked for or don’t bother.”

Sharlene didn’t receive anything for the rest of the week.

12. The hard partiers

In the early 2000s, I worked for a call center for a major auto manufacturer. When I started there, it was very professional, but as time went on there became more and more of a hard-partying culture. Cue the Christmas party: at a lovely hotel, unlimited beer and wine/cash bar for hard liquor, company discount on renting rooms overnight so no one drove drunk. Not being much of a party person, I left after dinner, but I heard the next week that they closed the party down earlier than planned due to drunken shenanigans. We were invited to choose somewhere else for the party the following year.

You’d think that would have caused some reflection on the next year’s party plans, but instead the whole thing just moved to a different lovely hotel. This time there were arrests for lewd behavior in the hallways/stairwells. The year after that there was a single ticket for beer and wine and no cash bar.

13. The misunderstanding

The White Elephant gift exchanges I did with friends were always jokes, you’d bring something that you had lying around and/or thought would be funny. That was always my understanding of the term. My first year at a job, I had two White Elephant gift exchanges, one with friends and one with coworkers. Nobody overlapped to both groups, so I decided to get two copies of the same joke gift to bring to both places: a framed, autographed photograph of my then-girlfriend and I.

The white elephant group with my friends found the photo a hilarious gift, it got stolen multiple times, and the person who ended up with it actually hung it on their wall for a couple years.

The work group brought nice gifts and so the person who opened my photo was completely baffled. Everybody gave me a weird look and I tried my best to stutter out an explanation of, “U,h yeah, White Elephant means joke gifts.” Made up for it as best as I could by trading it back in exchange for an actual gift so nobody got stuck with it, but even so, people definitely were not thrilled.

Next year’s email announcement of the gift exchange did not include the term “White Elephant” but did include detailed instructions about acceptable gifts.

14. The tree decorating contest

I worked for a large museum. One year, management announced that each department would be given a miniature (12 inches) tree to decorate to showcase their work. All the trees would displayed at the staff Christmas party and a winner would be announced. The winning tree would be displayed at the main ticket desk and the winning department would get a catered lunch.

The Restoration department went all out making a toolbox themed tree. Multiple senior staff, all dedicated and experienced craftspeople, worked on it over lunches for two weeks. One of them brought in jeweler’s tools from home to make the metal parts, like the saw blade. Handles were painted and varnished. Someone even braided embroidery floss to make tiny garlands. The end result was exquisite.

At the Christmas party, everyone was oohing and ahhing over it, and the staff responsible were very pleased with themselves. It was far and away the most beautiful and an obvious labor of love. When it came time for the winners to be announced, the much-hated director of HR stood up and announced that the Visitor Services department had won! They had decorated their tree by cutting faces out of museum brochures and sticking them into the branches. It was pretty clearly a last-minute and low-effort project. To make matters worse, the head of Visitor Services stood up and made a speech like she was accepting an Oscar. In her speech, she talked about how much she loved Christmas and broke down into tears. She then tried to lead us all in song while sobbing (happy?) tears of emotion. I am Jewish and was already quietly annoyed at attending an explicitly Christmas-themed work party, but I was definitely not the only one confused and uncomfortable. She was crying too hard to really sing clearly and everyone was just looking at each other, not knowing what do. Eventually the head of HR came up and led her away and restarted the party.

After, debate raged about whether visitor services’ tree had been chosen because the department was much smaller than restoration, and therefore cheaper to buy lunch for, or HR had just thought having a “we love our visitors!” themed tree in the lobby was a good marketing move. Restoration was widely agree to have been robbed. When the Christmas tree contest was announced the next year, most of Restoration refused to be involved. Department head said that we couldn’t hand in an empty tree, but that he wouldn’t begrudge an extremely minimal effort. A couple of the younger guys in the department decided to lean aggressively into the “Die Hard is a Christmas movie” trope. They stuck a lego helicopter and a paper cutout of Bruce Willis into the branches, and then made a paper tree skirt with stamped red footprints. I believe they had to be talked out of making a “Yipee-kay-yay mother-f***ers” banner. It was displayed at the Christmas party with all the other trees, and everyone knew it was an F-you to management, but it still won an honorable mention. Apparently, the department head told HR that if Restoration didn’t win something there would be riots. Additionally, in an apparent act of blue-collar solidarity, the Security department had decorated their tree with American flags because “we’re very patriotic, and it was never specified WHICH holiday the tree should be decorated for so we obviously chose the 4th of July.” Restoration refused to display the honorable mention certificate in the department break room, and the tree decorating contest was not held again.

15. The petting zoo party

My employer has historically had their holiday parties at local attractions — the zoo, a brewery, etc. The parties are never great, but at least you don’t have to cook dinner and there’s dessert. Last year, the party was also at a local attraction that isn’t just a petting zoo, but I would say that’s what most people remember it as.

The email invite did not say whether or not there would be animals at our party, so I emailed to ask. No. Too cold for the animals. Sure. My coworkers and I generally enjoy a good time, so we decided to go.

Dear reader, we should have taken our cue from the animals. This holiday party was not a good time, in any way, shape, or form. Turns out the attraction had a drive-through Christmas lights thing open to the public, and it was very popular. For unknown reasons, one of the two roads that led to the attraction was completely blocked off. We party-goers had to make our way along with the rest of the masses down one very long, very dark road. It took me 20 minutes to go less than a quarter of a mile.

After parking, we were told to take the tram up to the place where the party was being held. It was winter in the midwest, and bitterly cold. The tram departed as I was walking up, and I had to wait in the open air for 10 minutes for another tram. A tram that had no windows or doors. That drove very slowly over a surprisingly long distance so that we too could see the Christmas lights. That was playing Christmas music from a Christian radio station that had ads in between the songs advocating for the pro-life movement.

We were finally deposited outside the venue, which turned out to be a large, enclosed tent with some space heaters inside. Warmer after the tram ride, but not warm. There was some food, but not a whole lot. There was some alcohol and hot (actually mildly warm) chocolate, but the hot chocolate quickly ran out. No desserts.

I sat bundled in my coat and scarf with my one coworker who had already arrived. Another coworker had decided to abandon us when she saw the traffic and went back home. A third was still en route, having tried to come via the road which was blocked off and was having to go all the way around the attraction to the other road. My coworker and I sat and mingled with other folks, ate our not-great dinner, drank our single cups of mildly-warm chocolate, and bemoaned the lack of desserts.

We decided we could not betray our third coworker and leave early, so we waited another 30 minutes for her to make it to the venue, and then another 20 while she ate her not-great dinner, bemoaned the fact that the mildly-warm chocolate was gone, and cursed the fact that there were still no desserts.

Our executive director stood up and gave a long-winded talk about how were such a great team and how this was such a great party. We left as soon as he stopped talking and took another tram, also open to the elements, an even longer distance on a more meandering route so we could see the rest of the Christmas lights. Someone must have complained about the radio, so there were no pro-life ads at least. It may have started raining? I can’t remember.

As icing on a cake that was not even provided to us, the employee newsletter that week gave a big kudos to our executive director and his staff for putting on such a great holiday party.

This year, presumably due to budget cuts and not complete embarrassment for last year’s effort, our holiday party has been relegated to a staff potluck during lunch next week. Since there is no room large enough to host us all, chairs will be scattered throughout the floor in conference rooms, the staff lounge, and some odd seating areas tucked in random corners. There is no sign up list, you can bring whatever you want — a complete free for all and complete disaster in the making. There will be no animals to pet, again, but at least it will be properly inside.

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