5 Ways to Brighten Up Your Office This Christmas
Bringing the Christmas spirit to the office is one way to help boost morale and encourage team bonding. Often, people get so busy at the office that they don’t feel they have the time or the energy left to do anything that would brighten up both the office and everyone’s spirits. With work demanding our top performance, it’s easy to put such a high standard on doing something “Christmassy” at the office that it can seem too daunting to even try. Well, the good news is, it really doesn’t take a lot to go a long way in brightening up your office and bringing the Christmas spirit.
So what can you personally do to try and bring some Christmas cheer to your office during the holiday season?
1) Deck Your Computer Desktop With Wallpaper Every morning and several times a day thereafter, your computer’s lock screen and desktop background will be there to greet you. So why not take a couple minutes to pick the perfect holiday-themed wallpaper that will give you an extra boost of Christmas cheer throughout the day. Just google Christmas wallpapers and you will find more choices than you could ever sift through.
2) Start The Office’s Ugly Sweater Contest Show up one day wearing an ugly sweater to advertise that you are going to hold an ugly sweater contest. Start telling people when you are in the break room or passing people by in the halls. Getting the word out by mouth is the perfect way to start getting people pumped up for you contest. Then pick a few awesome prizes that your co-workers will love and set them up in the break room. Send around an email explaining the prizes and how people can enter the contest. It would be good to also let people know who is going to be judging the ugly sweater contest and the criteria the sweaters will be judged on. When the day comes, make sure to take lots of pictures so you can post them in the hall or the break room. Who knows, the contest may be a big enough hit that managers will take notice and next year implement it company wide.
3) Support a Co-Worker There are plenty of people going through a tough circumstances this time of year, including your co-workers. Many people don’t get involved with their co-workers personal lives, but if you happen to hear of someone struggling with aging parents or maybe a friend mentions her husband is going to have surgery soon, do a little something to brighten their day. You don’t have to make it into a big deal or make them feel like their are a charity project, just do a little something to spread the spirit of Christmas in your own way. Perhaps you can bring in an extra Chocolate croissant to your Italian co-worker who can’t travel home for the holidays. Or maybe you can tell your single mom co-worker that you will cover her responsibilities so she can take off early from work and do a little Christmas shopping before she has to pick up her kids. Whatever you decide to do, it will make you and your co-workers smile a little more this Christmas season.
4) Head up a Holiday Bakeoff The holidays are typically the time we all like to indulge a little and give into the delectable office sweets that magically appear in the break room. It is also the perfect time to drum up some office competition. Combine the office sweet tooth cravings and a little friendly competition and you have yourself a holiday bakeoff! This is a fairly easy endeavor to undertake since all you need is to do is send out an email announcing the bakeoff and letting people know that everyone will get a chance to vote to determine the winner of the bakeoff. Encourage your office to be extra giving, by letting people know that it costs $5 to enter the bakeoff and that all precedes will go to charity. The great thing about heading up the bakeoff is that you get to choose which charity the proceeds will go to. Then, sit back and watch your co-workers excited gear up to the event, touting their amazing baking skills and hyping up their secret recipes that are to die for. Its a great way to help people interact with each other more and get into about the sweeter side of the holiday season.
5) Make An Office Christmas Tree There are so many types of businesses and offices where people work. Make a Christmas tree that uniquely represents your office with things you find in your every day space. The more creative you get, the more fun it will be for whoever comes into your workplace. For example, if you work in a medical office, pull out those green latex gloves and put some air in them like a balloon. Then fashion them together to make a Christmas tree and decorate the tree with bandaids or bottle caps or anything safe (please no needles) that you would find around the office. If you work at a music store, roll up some sheets of music and put them together around a styrofoam tree. Decorate the tree with music tuners and old strings from a guitar or a violin bow.
Whatever it is that you decided to do this Christmas season to brighten your office a little bit more, just remember that the best thing you can do is to make people smile. It is the best gift you can give your co-workers and moreover, it is the best gift you can give yourself.