Christmas is around the corner and just like every year one has to decide how to celebrate it. It is supposed to be a family-centred holiday par excellence, yet the people with whom we work are to some extent a kind of family… apart from our parents, children or siblings, they are probably the ones with whom we spend most of our time. Moreover, companies find the idea of portraying themselves as a sort of extended family quite appealing. Thus a corporate Christmas party may prove to be an ideal chance to strengthen interpersonal relations, involving just about everybody, from management to employees.
It is a golden opportunity to end another business year ‘with a bang’, a key moment in the life of any company; it is also a way to highlight the fact that the board does indeed show concern for all employees—it is therefore the ultimate opportunity to share common goals and maybe even a few surprises. Nonetheless, if one is to meet everybody’s expectations, one must succeed in organising the event to perfection, turning the party into an unforgettable experience for co-workers and colleagues, providing a welcome and useful chance to meet again, celebrate the company’s achievements, build a successful team and above all have some fun together!
Organising the event
An essential stage in the organisation of a corporate Christmas party is to conceive a theme and make all the necessary arrangements to put it into action—something one has to do for any kind of event, as can well be imagined. An event devoid of a well-defined purpose can hardly be expected to work out without a glitch. Far from being a meaningful experience, a Christmas party reduced to a mere formality would lose all significance.
In order to organize a flawless Christmas party one has to take into account three key elements, namely, one’s target, location and budget.
As to the first, consider who the party is supposed to target: should it be company staff only, or open to independent contractors, freelancers and clients? If the latter, you should actually plan your event as if it were open to the general public, ensuring you are going to achieve exceptional brand visibility.
The next step is to choose when and where to throw your Christmas party. Shall it be in the company premises or would you prefer an entirely different setting? Of course, if your company has several branches, you will have to select a suitable venue somewhere else. In this case, don’t forget that the location ought to be within easy reach of all the people you invite, otherwise some of them might find the journey inconvenient and let you down. It should also match the mood of the event—and your corporate image as well.
Last but not least, you will also need to establish your operational budget for the event. Once these specific elements have been defined, everything will be easier and more understandable, as the overall unfolding of the party is bound to depend on them.
From idea to event
Apropos this subject we may perhaps share with you an experience dating from a few years ago. We had been asked to plan a Christmas event and we decided to do so from a team building perspective. We chose a theme and enjoyed an unbroken string of success. We were able to tap the culinary eagerness of some employees and turn it into an entertaining Christmassy Team Cooking experience: instead of contacting a catering service or booking tables in a restaurant as people usually do, we asked all employees to join forces and prepare a number of tasty Christmas appetisers, deliberately playing on the fact that they would naturally come from different regions with correspondingly different habits: they could thus be expected to unleash their gastronomic imagination and come up with the typical dishes of all Italian regions—well, almost all of them. The result was a blaze of flavours… an outburst of different tastes, garnished with heartfelt wishes.
Ultimately, once on the right track you shall overcome all obstacles —anyway, should you run out of ideas, just ask an expert… such as us!
A merry Christmas to all of you.