Here, all of the projects (that should have been finished months ago) become super-critical to get completed before the end of the year. So, for Christmas, I get the opportunity to try to accomplish three months’ work in six weeks. I haven’t had a day off since Thanksgiving day.
But, the good news is, it looks like I may be able to catch up on the worst of it before Christmas and take a few days off.
Now that’s an evocative turn of phrase!
My employer is a community college. For faculty and staff, there are several nice holiday luncheons with lots of food, drinks, Santa, giveaways, music and such.
I suppose some departments might have their own in-house things to do, but my dept. is quite large and now scattered over several buildings.
We get a year-end bonus of varying percentages, which is based on salary (and theoretically performance but it really doesn’t matter how well you do - if you’re not a manager, you’re getting a few hundred or a thousand; if you’re in the fund manager group, you’re getting anywhere from $15,000 to $500,000.
My boss usually gives me a pretty nice present worth about $400 or more, and one of the managing directors usually gives me a $50 card to a store he knows I enjoy. But he left today for 4 months and he didn’t give me anything, so perhaps that tradition has ended.
We don’t have a holiday party. We have a “lunch” at a dull restaurant that is absolutely nothing special. I think we’re missing it this year since the boss already left. No big loss since the restaurant is one we’ve all been to a hundred times.
Get paid for the 24th/25th, will have a catered meal the 21st, get a company sweatshirt this year (they thankfully did away with the employee->employee gift exchange) and a Christmas bonus equal to about three week’s net pay (that’s about what my bonus is, we aren’t supposed to compare bonuses with other employees. They are based on pay rate and tenure, and I’ve been here longer than anyone).
Ours has a big party at the shop. We invite customers, suppliers, friends, family and even ex-employees who have left the company on good terms. It starts about 3 in the afternoon, and goes until all the beer and food is gone.
This year, we are having it catered, and even have a band lined up.
In fact, the party is today and I’ve already started festivalling.
I work at an R&D center of a few hundred people for a large corporation.
Officially we have no “Christmas”. There is a dinner, but it’s only free for people celebrating service milestones or having received patents. It is called the Patent Award and Service Recognition Dinner. The fact that it always occurs in December is coincidental, as is the fact that the DJ will play Christmas music. The rest of us have to pay if we wish to attend. (it used to be free) There is a tree in the lobby. It is a generic holiday tree with generic holiday decorations (spheres and doves and other sparkly geometric shapes). We’ve collected gifts for nursing home patients under the tree, and the Toys for Tots drive just wrapped up today. There are pathetic looking generic holiday wreaths in the halls. My work group will be taken out to lunch by our group manager, but it will not be a “Christmas” lunch. It will be a “year end group luncheon”.
I am annually bemused at the lengths they go to to celebrate inoffensively. (and inexpensively)
We had a huge party at a somewhat local billiards hall- food, free alcohol, and faux gambling. We also had a raffle, wherein I (well, my wife and I) scored big time- I won an HD Camcorder, and she won a 40" LCD HDTV.
We also get the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day off.
We get a bonus…plus quarterly sales incentive (if our numbers are good, which they are), we’re having a Christmas party, at my house, tonight. I just spent $104.75 of the bosses’ money at the beer store which is the most I’ve ever spent there at one time and I have almost all the food ready.
Next week, we’re having a contractors day in the plant with probably leftovers (having been frozen after tonight, of course) and more beer.
Oh, happy days! Oh, and we’re off on the 21st to the 2nd of January!
Yaayyyy!
At the height of the bubble we all went out to a very nice restaurant, with spouses etc., and got presents also. Now we just had a lunch brought in. No money, but we get quarterly bonuses based on how we’re doing.
On the other hand we get from Christmas to New Years off, without having to take vacation, which is worth far more than a lunch or a few hundred bucks to me - especially since if everyone is off you don’t get behind.
We get unpaid time off for Christmas and the week that follows. Yay.
Well, my department (all of IT) will be having a nice lunch at a restaurant in Celebration, followed by a staff meeting. And they usually hand out a gift card worth about $30. For my smaller department within IT, Infrastructure Management, there was a barbecue lunch last week. That’s it. There used to be a big corporate Christmas party, but it was canceled in 2001 because of 9/11 and the financial situation it put our industry in. After things picked back up, though, the party never came back.
Yesterday, we had catered food brought in for lunch, paid for by the owner. So much food, there was enough for everyone to have some again today. Christmas/Year-end bonuses were distributed earlier this week. I also got a raise. 
On the 24th those who wish to participate will swap “secret Santa” gifts. Everyone chose to participate. Also, anyone who wants to is wecome to put up Christmas decorations. Oh, and BTW the owner is an Arab Muslim, and a recently-naturalized American citizen.
We had a great Diwali party for the larger group last month and will have a holiday dinner with just my immediate manager and his direct reports next week.
Just right for a department of 15 Hindu guys and me, the (white female) Grinch.
We get the priviledge of being reminded to buy our supervisors presents. We also get the 25th off… all day. (Even though its supposedly a terrible excuse to rob a corporation’s pocket.)
My resume and I live in hope that there are better employers out there (and that they are hiring).
We get the week between Christmas and New Year’s off, paid (actually, this year, we do have to work the 31st, but have the option of taking PTO and closing our offices). My boss also takes us out for a holiday lunch and usually gets a small gift for us (bottle of champagne two years ago - which I couldn’t drink because I was pregnant - and a bottle of Bailey’s last year).
We’re a non-profit, though, so this is actually fairly nice for us. We wouldn’t expect bonuses for non-work-related reasons because of that - it’s a bad use of donor dollars. However, the entire week off paid is very, very nice.
A couple of weeks ago, we had our annual holiday party in a private room at a new restaurant that also has bowling and bocce. Nice buffet, cash bar, door prizes, piped in music. It seemed to be a success, so we already booked the same place for next year.
Usually, the bonuses get handed out at the party, but because it was unusually early this year, we did that just today. My bonus was a bit more than a week’s take-home pay. That’s about the same as most of the eight years I’ve been here. Part-timers and freelancers get a little something too, which is nice.
We also get both the 24th and 25th off.
We have an Xmas party with open bar at a different swanky Manhattan restaurant every year. Everyone usually gets pretty f-ed up.
We also got a box of cookies this year.
Pardon my hijack, but are any of your companies hiring? Just asking.
I’ve been a Real good boy this year, Santa. All I want for Christmas is a decent job with a good employer. Honest…
Awards around here are performace-based. I slightly exceeded my goals this year so I’m expecing a check for 6% of my salary.
Christmas luncheons are paid for by the employees. There’s been so little interest for the past few years that each year the luncheon was cancelled on short notice; I’m wondering why we even bother to continue planning one.
