Our lovely Christmas party committee (= Séverine & Aurélie) had started early with the preparations for a lovely Advent time and a fantastic Christmas party.
To start with: an Advent calendar. Each colleague was assigned a day in December to open one of the little bags (filled with sweets and chocolates) appended by the conference room.
And Aurélie even spent hours to make sure we also had a Christmas tree in our office - a paper tree :-)
Then we were randomly assigned to be "Secret Santa" for one person in the office and every day during week 51 we had to make this person guess who we are by giving little (but not too obvious) hints about who we are. That could be an image, a quote, a little gift or whatever else to give a clue about our identity. I had drawn Gökhan's name of the hat and was now his Secret Santa. I tried to make him guess who I was by giving him:
- a cup of "Apfelpunsch" (warmed up apple juice with winter spices), explaining him that this is a non-alcoholic alternative to the "Glühwein" which is very common to drink in my country during Christmas time (either at a typical Christmas market or privately).
- an assortment of my home made Christmas cookies, telling him that his/her Secret Santa loves baking (everyone in the office knows that Jana and I are into baking) and that it's not uncommon in my country to give a bag with Christmas cookies to family, friends, neighbours and other people you like.
- a little piece of "Baumkuchen" (and explained why its name) which I had freshly imported from the Christmas market where I had been beginning of December.
- a box of tuna (Gökhan used to eat one every day!) writing tuna in all the languages I speak.
And still - he didn't guess who I was, that it was me his Secret Santa :-(
Anyway, now on Thursday 17th, it was time for our Christmas party. Already in the morning we started with the last preparations and decorations.
(had a nice picture of my colleague here busy preparing some snacks for the party, but I removed it because she didn't like it)
The presents for our Santa game later on.
Wow, Séverine and Aurélie had prepared those socks, sewed every colleague's name on them and filled them with ginger biscuits they painted themselves.
The seating arrangement: all places were numbered (with home made number cookies)
and to avoid having always the same people sit together one had to
randomly pick a number from a hat in order to get your seat assigned.
And then, at 2 p.m. it was finally time to shut down computers and start celebrating...
...with some snacks and finger food...
...with some drinks (prosecco with berries and pomegranate).
Terra Nova team :-)
Also Wiebke, who is currently on maternity leave, joined us with her little Hanna for the party :-)
The buffet is open! Again so much yummy stuff to eat - including traditional Norwegian Christmas "pinnekjøtt".
Time for dessert: mousse au chocolat (à la Stéphanie - of course!), Austrian marble "Gugelhupf", typical German "Christstollen" and "Lebkuchen", my cookies and tiramisù.
(A part of) Anette's Christmas present to us - in honour of our Swedish "fika" tradition celebrated every Friday afternoon.
The present we got when we correctly guessed who was our Secret Santa: a Christmas glass ball filled with a hot chocolate drink mix.
(had a nice and really not offensive picture of my colleague here, simply showing that we had a good time during the dinner, but I removed it because she didn't like it)
In between we played of course our special, funny version of "Santa" where we buy a present (not for any specific person) and then with a dice play/fight for our favourite present. This is always so much fun!!! I "won" baking utensils - very useful for me :-)
And now the party in on!
Thank you, colleagues, for this lovely Christmas party. And special thanks to Aurélie and Séverine for all your efforts and the many little details making it feel and look Christmassy :-)
And last but not least: MERRY CHRISTMAS to all of you!
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