My Holiday Party

My company Christmas...scratch that..."Holiday" party was last night. We've attended these parties every year since my first and I think this one will be the last. The parties used to be held at the Italian Community Center where the food is great, we got to go on carriage rides through the third ward, and did department group photos as well as couples photos. They were warm an friendly gatherings with dancing and drinks and lots of comraderie.

The last few years the parties are at the Marcus Center, a beautiful building, but one that feels a little colder, more formal that the ICC. The food is not that great, and activities include 'casino night'. Last year there was a fortune teller that was pretty popular and at the end of the night, you turned your 'gambling winnings' into prize tickets. If your ticket number was called, you won a gift card. This year there was no fortune teller and no prize tickets with 'casino night'.

The music was better than usual, but hardly anybody stayed. Only a few of us spent were left on the dance floor and the drinks were pretty expensive. We left earlier than ever before and on the way out Jeff commented that it seemed pretty lame this year. The food was so bad that I didn't eat so I was still hungry when we left. The camraderie was non-existent. I was kind of sad.

I'm sure the state of the economy was the reason for the cut back in the prizes so maybe next year the company will just cancel the party and I won't have to worry about deciding whether to go or not. I truly am grateful for these types of perks from the company but maybe I've just grown out of them.