Image Credit: Annie Spratt (Unsplash)

2022 has seen several changes around the world, and as it is coming to an end, Christmas and Year End Holidays are something that we all look forward to. 

As several of us are working from home, it has become challenging for Human Resource Teams to engage their employees and make their experience awesome at the workplace. Taking initiatives to celebrate festivals has also become challenging as employees are not at the office and tend to spend less time exploring office events.

Having to come to work every day during the holiday season is no fun for anyone, but there are some steps that you can take to fill the employees with festive spirit across designations and departments. Below are some ideas you can use to celebrate Christmas at the office in 2022.

1. Plan beforehand:
   Although you may be busy with several different operational works, it is always better to plan beforehand and this is because you don't want to end up hurrying for a memorable experience. Therefore, invest some time in creating a group of your trusted teammates and creative team members who can provide suggestions on how to celebrate or what events to include this year's Christmas celebration.
    
2. Decorate the workplace:
   Everyone likes a surprise decoration at their workplace. Think if you can take help from some selected people in your team and decorate your organization before everyone comes to the office. It is better to start doing it a few days before Christmas to keep everyone boosted for the main event.
   
   You can use simple Christmas Decorations, buntings, and even Christmas Trees in different departments or place one giant Christmas Tree at the entrance of the company or organization. This will surprise everyone and they will feel the vibe of the event beforehand.
   
   I would also like to suggest some Christmas songs to be played while people enter the office. This will cheer them up and they will be motivated to look forward to the main event.
    
3. Everyone likes Secret Santa:
   Yes, that's true. Secret Santas are favorite of everyone. Although you will have to do some work to make this happen, this works great with people working from home.
   
   If you haven't heard about Secret Santa, I will explain the same; So what happens, you send a mail to every employee that you are about to start a secret Santa game, and you make every employee a Santa for every other employee. This should be done randomly to have lots of fun.
   
   Now, after declaring Santas, you ask employees to leave small gifts to their mates or to the person to whom you have allocated them as Santa. These gifts can be;
   a) a pen,
   b) a small greeting card,
   c) a simple registration to thewiki Network
   
   You don't have to spend a lot of money to play secret Santa, and people that are working from home can easily send secret messages anonymously to their allocated mates using a shared drive. I remember last year, I provided membership of thewiki Network by registering an employee's email id here.
   
   This gave that employee a beautiful message and also a lifetime membership to awesome articles from thewiki Network, which will always help them in enjoying and living life to the fullest. I saved the link, username, and password in a slide deck with a Christmas Greeting in our shared drive, and I know that the employee got really happy to get a free subscription to beautiful articles, and social media platform that is dedicated to writing and reading.
   
   Our organization was great enough to give gifts to every Secret Santa that had placed gifts on the desks of employees or even shared something in the share drive. This actually encouraged everyone to play Secret Santa. We received new headphones as a gift for engaging in this activity, which makes me even more motivated to look for this year's Secret Santa.
    
4. Have Christmas Dress Day:
   Everyone has beautiful memories with their dresses. Encourage everyone to dress in a particular color for Christmas week. This will allow everyone to take pictures with the Christmas tree and within their teams and then ask them to share the photos on thewiki Network.
   
   They can register to thewiki Network by clicking here.
   
   Also, ask them to use #christmasvibes, and the photo that receives the most likes will be the winner you can even provide them with a small trophy to be kept in their department. This best works if we have a year-on-year shield or trophy that revolves from one department to another as per the winning team. So, if someone wins this year, doesn't mean they will win next year as well, and they can ask everyone from the organization or from their personal circle to like their photo so that the chances of winning the trophy are more.
    
5. Have a Christmas Decoration competition:
   The main reasons for the competitions are to relieve employees from their day-to-day work and encourage team collaboration. Therefore, organizing Christmas Decoration Competitions will encourage everyone to take out time of their busy schedules and relieve them from their stresses of work, and will also encourage team collaboration.
   
   Similarly, you can ask them to share photos on thewiki Network or can even keep judges that will select the best decorations and give them chocolates or ask the winning team to cut the Christmas Cake.
    
6. Host Award Ceremony:
   Everyone likes to be recognized at work. Therefore, take this opportunity to recognize everyone at the organization for their efforts and provide them with some gifts as part of the award program. These awards can be as simple as a movie voucher or some gift cards.
    
7. Have a potluck some day at the office:
   This is obviously for people who are going to the office, and others can enjoy a video call as well. You can conduct a pot lock for Christmas, where everyone gets something for everyone. It can be as simple as a bread cake and everyone at the organization can enjoy it at lunch or at dinner.
    
8. Have a bring your kids or pets a day at the office:
   Pets and Kids are centers of Christmas week, and if you allow employees to get their kids or pets at the office, they will be more than happy to do so. This also encourages personal human connections within individuals as they are able to talk about their daily and personal life. This is an awesome way to relieve everyone from their daily monotonous work routine.
    
9. Have online games on a video call:
   Create teams and have a video call with all your employees working from home and then shuffle papers with the names of teams. Then ask those teams to perform or play games like dumb-shall-arts. Games like these are fun, and you can use technology like Google Slides or MS Paint for these games.
   
   For example, ask one of the team members to describe a movie with only drawings while others will guess the name of the movie sitting online on video. This is an amazing way to see how people enjoy working in teams to figure out the name of the movie.
    
10. Place gifts under one giant Christmas Tree or send gifts to your employees via courier:
    Everyone likes gifts and while keeping gifts with names under the Christmas Tree is awesome, you can always send gifts to employees via courier for those who are working from home, and then arrange a video call and talk to them about their efforts and thank them for their hard work.

Conclusion;
Celebrating Christmas at the workplace is not difficult, we just need to think about the ways that we can use to do so. If you feel you also have some awesome ideas, please feel free to share those in the comment section below as it might help someone from the HR Team to arrange an unforgettable memory or experience for their employees.

Thanks :)