Possumblog

Our Christmas parties are pretty much fun. Whether school or department we bring spouses. The last few years the parties were catered so no one had to bring the pot of greens.

Jim, how far is the ice from you?

Try having a Christmas luncheon with a bunch of accountants - almost as bad as engineers. The high point, however, is when our Purchasing Director draws names for the booty she's collected from vendors throughout the year. I've won a plush Gateway cow and a lava lamp (I think we've started supplying lava lamps in the dorm rooms along with cable t.v. - not sure where that one came from).

Maybe ours would be more enjoyable with giveaways. Except we don't get anything to give away.

Might have already asnwered through Terry but the bad weather was far away. Greenville SC got hit hard. Since we are only about 80 miles from the coast it takes a special set of circumstances for us to have anything. Sundy just might be special.

Justin's firm has two office parties for some reason. One dinner party at the house of one of the lawyers. That's for family and they play White Elephant Dirty Santa, which can be entertaining. They also have a lunch party just for the people in the office with a Secret Santa gift exchange, funny gifts preferred. The meals are catered which is nice, but it is hard to find that many funny gifts.

I would sorta like for us to do gifts, but I never have really like Dirty Santa, even if the gifts are crappy. Because it always seems that someone manages to bring something kinda cool, and everyone goes stinkin' nuts trying to get it away from whoever has it.

The only time I at all liked the dirty Santa game was when we played it once with Christmas ornaments. Then I really didn't feel invested. But basically I hate the game -- still it is some what entertaining. Especially when the most traded gift is a fiber optic poinsettia someone wants to slum with. :)

Sweeeet!

Reba actually got a nice gift one year. It was a cheap Chinese embroidered silk bird picture in the shape of a hexagon. It really wasn't bad at all, and we wound up putting it on a nice matte and framing it. But I think she had to hide it to keep someone from stealing it. You know how church people can be...

Pardon the ignorance and the lateness (I am both sick and Hebrew), but Dirty Santa?

Santa forgot to do the laundry? Off-color reindeer jokes?

Do tell.

Dirty Santa is a game where you bring inexpensive or gag gifts to exchange. There are many different ways to play, but the way I've played it most is that the gifts are distributed, and then you go around the room to each person, and if someone has a gift you like better than the one you have, you get to run over there and swap with them. You go around once, and the usual rule is a gift may be swapped only three or so times--after the third time, it stays with the person who has it.

An even more convoluted permutation can be found here.

I don't really like playing it because I've never understood the charm in people fighting over worthless trinkets. Too much like Congress for my tastes.