Small office holiday party ideas

In an office setting it is important to balance the relationships and try and keep things positive. In a single workplace the employees come from all walks of life and their different ages, cultures, and backgrounds will influence who they are. These differences and sometimes cause awkwardness or contention among employees. A negative work environment will have a bad impact on the workplace, so working on building unity is essential. A great way to build unity is through holding holiday parties at the office.

There are so many holidays throughout the year that it is easy to pick a few dispersed about equal distances apart and create holiday traditions. Some obvious holidays are Halloween, Christmas, Easter, the 4th of July. Other holidays that could be used are Valentine’s day, St. Patrick’s Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving. You could even pick more holidays or other events like birthdays to celebrate, and simply institute a small tradition for some of the in-between ones and bigger traditions for other holidays. Remember that there is a nice balance between increasing productivity and wasting time when dealing with office parties, so you need to have parties often enough to keep spirits high and employees engaged, but not too often where you are losing valuable work time and employees are less productive.

Christmas is the most obvious and most often celebrated holiday at work. You can do many things including decorating with Christmas lights – white lights can be especially calming for employees. Some other ideas are holding a Christmas party in which you can have karaoke, an appearance by Santa Clause, a white elephant gift exchange, and some nice snacks. If you have a bigger budget in your company you could have dinner and door prizes for your employees.

Halloween is another fun holiday that many companies overlook. It is good for the adults to get out of their element and dress up for fun events. Some adult Halloween costume ideas include movie themed characters (such a Davy Jones from the Pirates movies), cartoon characters (such as Homer Simpson), presidents, etc. Halloween parties can really get the employees laughing and enjoying each others company.

The 4th of July is a great time to have a party outside of the office. Hold a pool party, a barbeque, etc. Get your employees outside, eating, and participating in some fun activities. Frisbee, obstacle courses, etc. are great ideas for getting your employees enjoying their time together. You can also easily invite family members to events like this.