You have been decorated

Hullo, my worthy readers. I keep having blog ideas; generally at work, where blogging is strictly forbidden. And then I forget them all by the time I get home.

This week at work, we've chiefly been decorating. There's a Christmas decoration contest, and the first day was Monday. So Monday I trot along with $5 worth of garland from Target, and a couple packages of clear and red ornaments, and a string of lights, and a cookie jar full of cookies. I'd been meaning to bring cookies for a while, particularly for John the Conference-Goer, John my supervisor, and Steven, because I gave John the Conference-Goer an almond one the other day and he got all happy. I think they're all single guys and don't get cookies very much. "COOKIE COOKIE COOKIE!"

Anyway, my cube turned out very pretty and classy, and the cookies made me a lot of friends. Bethany, whom I helped train, turned one down because of her diet, but Beverlie from by the elevator was so excited she kept coming back for more, and her seatmate Chad came to try one and find out what all the fuss was about. Dawn was so enthusiastic about the cookie jar, she came back later that week with a cookie for me, and said I'd inspired her, though not too much--this was just a slice 'n bake cookie. She can't make real cookies. The homemade chocolate chip ones she attempted burned. I thought Dawn's slice 'n' bake cookie was pretty good and sympathized with her about the chocolate chip wreckage. Anyway, the cookie jar was duly emptied, and I brought it home again.

The section immediately to my right decorated themselves as the reindeer stable, complete with antler headbands, felt buckets full of "feed," "wooden doors," and a clever sign about "No flash photography" and "Unattended children will be hired as elves." Everybody's nametag got revamped: Matt, whose wedding is in about three weeks, got dubbed "Cupid." Christie over across the way covered her cube walls with brown paper and candy and icicle light "frosting" as a Gingerbread Cube, and shared the candy. (She became popular too.)

Well, this was a competition. On Tuesday the next section over got themselves up as a Christmas village with little doormats for each cubicle. Things escalated. A quadrant over to my left became "Paradise," palm trees, leis, and all. Another section decided to be Candyland. Somebody put up a Grinch theme that plays the "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" song occasionally. Someone else labeled the support column by the printer "The North Pole." Another section, spearheaded by Dawn of the cookies, had a ginormous Santa banner.

And even Ben, in the cube next to mine, became Santa's Workshop. Two little elves by his right elbow have tools, and a "conveyor belt" carries matchbox cars, GI Joes, tiny rubber duckies, and itty-bitty Play-Doh containers up the cube wall, around the edge, and up to his shelf to the "Gift-Wrap-O-Matic", whence a string of tiny packages trails down and into Santa's big black bag. He has a funny sign about "Remember, There's No I In Elf."

On Friday, Julie my new team leader, draggled in late. She commented on the state of affairs with a certain amount of disgust. "Even the tech guys decorated their area. I didn't think they had it in them." Their area was a snow-filled masterpiece with black accents, and little squishy-ball computers on the corners.

I spent my morning break scoping out the other floors' decorations--I wanted to find out about the competition, you see. There really wasn't much--a knickknack here, a lit-up coatrack there. The third floor was positively dark, but then it usually is. I think it's because the extraneous boxes of legal documents get piled there like a young pyramid of doom, but that's neither here nor there.

Well, about this time, there wasn't a whole lot left to decorate on our floor. Rebecca, immediately to my left, and my friend Greer the guitarist, cati-corner from me, were wrapping-paper-ing their cube walls. Greer and I get to talking, and note that Jim who sits just past Greer is gone to New York and didn't decorate his cube before he left.

Gasp. Well, this is obviously not acceptable. So we decorated for him. She had a white sheet and a string of silver balls left over, and Rebecca had some gaudy sparkly blue and red paper left from her cube. I showed Greer and her seatmate Sara how to cut a six-sided snowflake and we had a lovely time. Won't Jim be excited to come back and see how festive his cube is? :-)