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| Dark Lindor Ball |
"I've learned that you can tell a lot a person by the way he or she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas lights."
- Maya Angelou
The best day of work in any year has to be the Christmas lunch day. My offsider, with minor assistance from me, pulled together a brilliant spread and for once everybody managed to make the lunch! Even my right-hand gal, still on maternity leave, managed to come in with her teensy bundle of squeals. By about 11am we'd given up on getting any actual work done and were busy setting tables, getting out platters, un-gladwrapping and getting ready to have a great time together.
The buffet table was heavily laden with a seafood platter, a huge ham which took me over an hour to carve up, roast chickens, two types of cranberry sauce, a bread roll Christmas tree, an oriental noodle salad, my fabulous favourite broccoli salad and a really nice coleslaw. And that was just for main course! The other 'dining' table was laden with assorted drinkies and festive placemats.
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| Just look at that spread! |
I tucked in to two platefuls because what the hell, it's Christmas! I had a bit of everything, even a nice big chunk of lobster and an Aranciata Rossa to drink. Conversation was merry and bright and we laughed and joked and talked about what we were all doing for 'Christmas proper'.
After lunch and before dessert it was time for Kris Kringle and our traditional game of Christmas Lolly Bingo. Because we had a Christmas tree not in use, the Marketing Manager had let us put it in the boardroom. It was a lovely touch to be able to give out presents from under the Christmas tree.
I'll pause here for an angry-pants aside and say that Fastway Couriers are a really crappy delivery company. I had ordered a gift for my Kris Kringle draw on the weekend from a warehouse in Toorak, a whole 16.7km from work. By this morning it still had not arrived and I had to go with a back up present. I was very disappointed. Their online tracking showed the parcel loaded onto a vehicle three separate times in the five days they had had it but still they failed to deliver each time! I placed a phone call to their lack-of-customer-service team and was reassured that they would ring the driver and get straight back to me on my mobile. They never called back and I was thoroughly unimpressed and fully plan to write a letter of complaint , but for now back to the joyful Christmas celebrations.
There were presents aplenty under the Forest Hill team Christmas tree this year. Three wrapped prizes for bingo and fourteen Kris Kringles! Lovingly, or perhaps jokingly, selected by each of us for one other on the team. I got a Daily Mood flipchart to give colleagues an early 'crappy day' warning and also the Really Really Big Words Trivia Quiz. Someone certainly knew their audience! I barely know any of the words!
Now without cheating ie. looking it up or googling it... Gallimaufry; is it:
a) A small pony, white with black markings.
b) A pudding made with milk, sweetened with liquidized banana.
c) A collection of odds and ends.
d) A wooden siege tower.
How cool would it be to be the person that has to think of the false answers!?
After Kris Kringle the gorgeous little bags of wrapped lollies were handed out as well as the Christmas Bingo cards. I forgot to take a picture of them because I was the caller for the game but they are a five by five grid filled with Christmassy pictures. The caller draws individual pictures from a bag and if that one is on your card you put a lolly on it. First person with five in a row (vertical, horizontal or diagonal) wins! It was a lot of fun and we had all three prize winners call bingo within a couple of cards. Our Regional Manager, a Head Office staffer, was delighted she had been able to attend and join in all the fun.
We all just chatted and laughed for a while and started to make mutterings about our annual team Christmas photo with Santa (yup, we really are all just big kids) and my offsider and I started to clear up the buffet table and soon had desserts laid out. Everyone groaned, but everyone had something! There were cupcakes from The Cupcake Bakery at Chadstone, provided by our wonderful voiceover artiste, a huge cylinder of Lindor Balls provided by our Regional Manager and fresh cherries and strawberries! Ahh cherries, the quintessential Christmas fruit.After a little dessert we finally managed to get everyone up and into the queue for our team photo with Santa and it was our best one yet! Good things come to those who wait I suppose, because we did have to wait a little while! Santa is very very popular this time of year. Can't imagine why...
Needless to say, no more work was done in the afternoon. We tidied up the tables sure, we carved up leftovers and packed take-home boxes for people, we sat and talked and ate even more desserts, but the main objective was just to stay in that spirit of camaraderie and Christmas, so that's what we did.
After preparing those, while the two hungry people ate their dinner I once again prepared the Broccoli Salad, this time for our family Christmas lunch tomorrow! And after that an Icecream Christmas Pudding! It seemed fitting, it being his first Christmas in warm weather, that we should have an Icecream Christmas Pudding in honour of the Cambridge Rower. He was certainly very curious during the preparation process so I kept my fingers crossed that it would turn out fine as it was my first time making it on my own, Mum always did it before. It actually turned out to be pretty easy thank goodness!
After all that the evening was definitely getting a bit long in the tooth but Gub had promised to rub my feet and by gum she sticks to her word that girl! Her only condition was, that the TV be showing one of our favourite movies, Calamity Jane with Doris Day and Howard Keel. They sure don't make 'em like that any more. Sigh. It was fun to have some sister time and Gub got her feet seen to a bit too but eventually night got the better of us and we traipsed off to our beds, eagerly anticipating tomorrow's family Christmas.
Jess
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