So, it only took a day or so for work to kill my Christmas buzz. Today was crazy and stupid, and it left me feeling a severe case of the Bah Humbugs. I didn’t go to business school, but I believe you can judge how your company is doing by comparing each year’s Christmas party to previous shindigs. Some super-expensive, business model textbook has got to back-me-up on this. Anyways, the owners of this company used worked on site and threw fun, banging parties. Two years ago, I hear they rented a club-like place, provided adult beverages and gave money bonuses. Last year, I did not attend the party, due to my boss causing drama and making me cry, but it was a luncheon in our building’s swanky conference center. There was a murder mystery game with prizes, and we got the following day off as a gift. Actually, my manager forgot to call and tell me, so I still came to work, to find nobody there except for a couple customer service reps who came-in in exchange for a comp day. I helped IT solve an issue in the server room through the magic of cell phones and watered the plants before leaving.

This year was a total bust. First off, I spent all day yesterday building Christmas gift boxes that our company owner wanted to send to his associates. I had to package and tie ribbons to 35 parcels of product valued at at least $250 each. All our freelance makeup artists also got a nice gift. Let us not forget the 140+ cards I addressed and the 500+ I postmarked and sent out, many to the same address multiple times, others to addresses that apparently do not exist and get sent back to the office.  Our party was not a party. It was our regular, monthly, town hall meeting with pizza and soda. The two cool execs who brought White Christmas-tinis had to make fake drinks instead, Fauxtinis, and our gift? Get this. The party was at noon, and at around 12:30, it was announced that we could leave at 2:00 as a gift, so long as ALL our work was done. Seriously? Luckily, I wrote my fridge song early, because I had to ship half of those expensive gifts, order FedEx supplies, sort the mail, clean the fridge, clean-up the party food remains in the break room and water the plants in an hour! Oy vey!

In celebration of not feeling Christmas-y, I will share my belated Hanukkah fridge song. Joie, of course, blew me away yet again with one of her stunning illustrations.

Freezer, Freezer, Freezer
♫ ♪To the song Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel ♫

I have a filthy freezer,
filled with faux fish filets ,
stale soup and spoiled spaghetti,
so I’ll clean it today!

Oh, Freezer! Freezer! Freezer!
In dingy disarray,
at fifteen minutes to five,
I’ll clean-you-out today!

Some people leave their rubbish,
treat you like a trash bin.
If cleaning was a contest,
gold medals we would win!

Oh, Freezer! Freezer! Freezer!
In dingy disarray,
at fifteen minutes to five,
I’ll clean-you-out today!

The freezer’s always frigid.
It loves to store your chow,
until it’s overflowing,
so go get your food now!

Oh, Freezer! Freezer! Freezer!
In dingy disarray,
at fifteen minutes to five,
I’ll clean-you-out today!