Christmas decorations at work?

[Caribou]

I was hoping to witness to them, but they did not show up. Of course his wife is 8 months pregnant, with what seems like 12 stairstep children. Maybe I will give them a card with a tract in it about the evils of the phallic symbols.Wait, shouldn't the Patriarchs love them some phallic symbols, or just Dougie?

Or you could direct them to this site:

[ladypuglover]

Ugh, our Christmas party is today. They have a "desk decorating contest", so our entire place is filled with ugly stuff. I was denied, by HR, to bring in my Leg Lamp from "A Christmas Story" for my office window, so, instead, I wrote Bah, Humbug! in red lipstick.

Now that is the war on Christmas. :evil: Don't they know it is a major award!!! Bastards!

[onlyorganic]

At my old work I taped up snowflakes and holly because my boss wanted it to look festive. She also wanted a Christmas tree up so we did that, complete with handmade ornaments that kiddos had made for us. Then HER boss came in and freaked out and told ME I was assuming everyone was a Christian and I was being insensitive to other faiths. I told her I was only doing what was asked. She told me to throw the tree away because it looked tacky. So I took the whole fucking tree and dragged it out to the dumpster. When my boss came in she flipped out and was like "where is our tree???" I told her Deirdre was going to write me up, called me insensitive to others' faiths and had me throw it all away. I then told Charlotte she was free to go dumpster-diving and take it out and put it back up. It caused a fight with the managers at work and the boss who called me insensitive won and we had limited decorations that year. Bitch.

[emmiedahl]

I am probably a little weird in that I will celebrate any holiday. Sure, why not? Let's party and have fun. If it involves drinking, presents or good food, I am there.

I am the one that all of the pointed references at keeping Christ in Christmas are probably aimed at. My holiday tree has a skull garland and a whole range of crap that my kids have made for it (they just make stuff out of paper and hang it on the tree without asking, so it looks like a recycling pile right now). My husband is Catholic and does not want to give up Christmas, but we definitely have our own way of doing it. This year we are celebrating Hanukkah and Christmas at the same time, which is weird because they don't usually overlap. For a while we blocked out different rooms for Jewish and Christian decorations, but it was too much to keep track of so now we have the holiday tree and the menorah in the same room. God forgive me...

[fundiefan]

I work in a cubicle maze of over 500 people. Everyone has the freedom to decorate their space as they choose; there are no company sanctioned decorations other than the tree in the main lobby. There are lights and tinsel and garland and paper chains and snowflakes; Santa's and snowmen and personal/cubicle sized trees. A few menorahs. The building I am in houses the mainframe programmers, many - many - of whom are Indian, and their section is pretty much empty of Christmas decorations. Some areas go by department/section and have theme decorations. Some have a little, some have a lot. My department is a bunch of dead ducks and there is one woman with a glittery Merry Christmas sign on her wall, and we all taped our mutual cards on our cabinets, but that's about it. Not by rule, just by a bunch of boring people and I'm a temp so it isn't an option for me. This week, all the departments had their celebrations, some subdued, some crazy rowdy and fun making those of us in boring departments jealous. One group had an ugly Christmas get up contest - overkill on the ugly Christmas sweater theme. The whole company spent the month having a silent auction and bake sale with all proceeds going to charity.

If there is a war on Christmas it is not happening anywhere I spend any time, and that includes the public streets in my town, the gas station, grocery store, liquor store, movie theater, work place, post office or the village offices where I went to pay my water bill today.

[bananacat]

Where I work, we actually had a tree-trimming party, in addition to the holiday party a week later. The tree was topped with the tackiest crochet angel that is probably older than I am, but it's still pretty religious. There are also a bunch of other decorations that all look like something your grandma would have made in the 80s. I object to these more because of their hideousness than their religious connection.

[Jezebel]

my boss is a cheap bastard and never decorates. he did get me a pizza for a Christmas dinner.

Wait I am my own boss crap now who can I blame?

:lol:

Yeah, I'm self-employed too. I didn't get around to decorating last year, but did find an amazing Thai restaurant that was open and treated myself to a sumptuous Christmas feast.

I made some new ornaments this year and wanted to put up the tree, but decided it was too much of a hassle. The ornaments are gracing the pendant light fixture (not grand enough to be a "chandelier"), instead. But I did put some colored lights up, because at this dark and gloomy time of year I really need them. And knowing me, they'll stay up until at least March...

[doggie]

:lol:

Yeah, I'm self-employed too. I didn't get around to decorating last year, but did find an amazing Thai restaurant that was open and treated myself to a sumptuous Christmas feast.

I made some new ornaments this year and wanted to put up the tree, but decided it was too much of a hassle. The ornaments are gracing the pendant light fixture (not grand enough to be a "chandelier"), instead. But I did put some colored lights up, because at this dark and gloomy time of year I really need them. And knowing me, they'll stay up until at least March...

my work is a woodworking shop so things would get covered in dust and in the way. with all my food allergies (carbs re the worst I was pretty limited. so I had some good pizza and just ate the topping it. I used to have sushi but I did not feel like suffering for the rice. I have nto had pizza in a really long time so it was a great treat.

[muffynbear]

I work in an office with a bunch of religious women, so OF COURSE their cubicles are decked out. Mine? Pfft. I let one of my co-workers put one bow at my desk. That was my limit for decorating. I find Christmas decorations at work to be annoying, especially since I'm agnostic and the rest of my co-workers are Christian women who obsess over Winter and Christmas They assume that EVERYONE celebrates Christmas.

[JesusFightClub]

That's hilarious. I work at home, so my place is decorated, but I did it. My last job decorated a lot but it was a retail/service environment so I think it's expected by customers. It was pretty secular Christmas stuff though, santa and garlands and fake snow - no nativity or anything. I never heard anyone say that they minded except for the standard "I'm sick of this holiday music" complaint which was pretty much everyone.

ETA: JFC I did get back to you on the New Testament = anarchism and pacifism topic. Didn't want you to think I was pulling a fundie evasive maneuver. :P

I saw, Lissar! You made some really interesting points and I hadn't seen it that way before, indeed it gave me A Thought, a somewhat rare occurrance for me. Will head over shortly.

Lady P, the wise men are a bit, er, improvised (one of them is a toy soldier, for a start). Where the original went is lost in the mists of time. I like your suggestion though and may implement it when reception aren't looking.

FuManchu, your office sounds like a great laugh. We're public sector and would get dinged for doing such things, but if we could, we so would. Did you win?

[FuManchu]

FuManchu, your office sounds like a great laugh. We're public sector and would get dinged for doing such things, but if we could, we so would. Did you win?

We got a special mention - unfortunately we're a department of four competing against departments of fifty, so winning outright was never on the cards. We're going to hijack the winners' night out instead!

[JesusFightClub]

Quite right, then they will have to buy you drinks!

This makes me think of another Christmas tradition, the office Christmas lunch/dinner. I don't know, do Americans do that? Where you go out with your workmates for a meal/drinks and end up drunkenly confessing you've fancied one or all of them for ages and forgetting how you got home and waking up still wearing the party ha...um well you get the general picture ;) Not sure what the baby Jesus would make of this, but having a feast and getting merry are certainly Christmas traditions.

I had five this year - union, Party (yes we do have a Xmas night out...), work unit, work section, group I'm involved with. Last year six (including other work unit I was seconded to). A drain on the wallet but a great opportunity to get to know people better, in fact sometimes too well.

Do people here do this? What is it like and where do you go? For people working at home do you take yourself or family out for pre Christmas treat?

[Deleted07]

our workplace puts up tinsel/garland everywhere... the mall itself has a tree and a santa claus, as well as baubles and garland hanging about.

I have heard that some stores are choosing not to decorate, but to be honest I hear this every year, but never once seen anyone NOT decorate yet...

[mirele]

Ugh, our Christmas party is today. They have a "desk decorating contest", so our entire place is filled with ugly stuff. I was denied, by HR, to bring in my Leg Lamp from "A Christmas Story" for my office window, so, instead, I wrote Bah, Humbug! in red lipstick.

The owner did not bring the wife and mass of children in this time. darn, I was hoping to have a fundie report. They are uber fundies, frumpers, matching clothes, but they still celebrate Christmas.

You weren't allowed to bring in the Leg Lamp? How sacrilegious!

At the office I go to sometimes to work (ok, two days a week), there were no decorations up in general because the admin is retiring on the 28th and she's not doing anything extra (and I don't blame her). Plus all the management (and a lot of the staff, like me) have been traveling around this month. I went to one of our big buildings in Charlotte last week and people had little fake trees and decorations around their cubes. I was envious because we're not allowed to have anything electric besides our computers and lights in our cubes and one of the managers had a laser light Christmas tree. On the other hand, I work (when I go to the office) in a small office, while this place was simply HUUUUUUGE, the total epitome of the "cube farm." So, a very different vibe there.

[JenniferJuniper]

There's a nativity scene set up on a table as you get off the elevator in my office.

I noticed yesterday someone stuck a little plastic Rudolph amongst the goats and the sheep.

[lilwriter85]

I'm employed by a medical supply company, but I work mostly from home. I went into the company office last week for meetings and it was the usual decorations like garlands, small trees with stars on top, snowmen and Santa decorations.