Office Meal ideas

laura_j_2k

Hi,

I am organising our office christmas meal this year and i have already booked a restaurant and paid deposits.

However, I want to make it more special but i dont want to pay for anything myself (as there will be 15 of us) and the boss is already paying for wine on the table!

I was thinking about making some personalised place cards with their menu choice but i was wondering what else could I do?

Any ideas greatly appreciated!

thanks

chickadee

Our wonderful receptionist organised our Christmas do. She put loads of effort into it. We each got a 'hat' made from a band of card with a front section that had a flip-up bit. On the outside was a riddle and on the inside a picture that was the answer to the riddle. Each one was personal to the wearer. It marked out places and was an ice-breaker/talking point as everyone was asking each other about them.

She put bags on our tables (large-size gift bags) with some long thin balloons in along with a sheet of instructions on how to twist them into various animals. She got the waiter to judge our efforts at the end of the evening and award a prize to the winner! Also in the bags were quiz sheets. It was amazing how competitive we all became, but it was good fun too. We had little gifts as well, prettily wrapped to look like a cracker. Mine was a notebook keyring, but others were small handbag mirrors, folding brush, etc. On top of all of this the restaurant put out party poppers and crackers.

Some of this cost money so I don't know if it is an option for you. You could maybe get some freebies/samples, although it is getting a bit late now.

Good luck, I hope you have as good a time as we did!

laura_j_2k

wow she went to loads of effort. I like the quiz idea and i also like the hat idea. Then again, it would be nice to do all of it but there is the money situation.

Thanks!

laura_j_2k

wow she went to loads of effort. I like the quiz idea and i also like the hat idea. Then again, it would be nice to do all of it but there is the money situation.

Thanks!

laura_j_2k

oops sorry for the double posting.

Smickan

Wow, that sounds fantastic

I had the Christmas meal hoisted onto me last year for 6 people including myself, I wasn't even aware that it was my responsibility *rolleyes*

We'd talked about having a meal somewhere, and I'd gone for dinner with my mum to our local Wetherspoons the day before and happened to notice a Christmas dinner menu thing that you could book in advance. I happened to mention it as a suggestion and instantly it was 'yeah, okay - here's the deposit'.



I booked it and had to bargain with the manager of the Wetherspoons to have it earlier [like 2pmish] as they have the Christmas meals officially starting around 5pm but cos everyone wanted to have it earlier... we did. Thankfully.

My boss' husband who worked with us is a reverend and all of them except for me were religious and stuff [I worked for a Community Centre which is in with the church] and I was the only one who'd drink alcohol, but because I'd only been there like 3 months at that time and because I didn't want to be there [I was 20 - the nearest person to me in age was 47] I had a soft drink and it couldn't finish soon enough... They appeared to enjoy themselves and we did talk and stuff but... being a pub, being 1/2pm... it was noisy and they didn't look impressed.

I'd only offered it as a suggestion, I'd much rather have prefered to go somewhere other than a pub :rolleyes:

So the moral of the story is... [there is one ] consider your audience in terms of what they might like/do.

claire21

Organise a secret santa and have the presents given out there.

claire21

You could get everybody to bring in a baby/toddler picture of themselves, give them all to you with their names on the back and have a competion guessing who each one is.

laura_j_2k

we have already done secret santa thanks, but i like the baby pic idea.

Smickan, I had to laugh at your story i have been in a similar situation myself! When I was 17 I started working in a small office and the person closet to my age was about 35, lol.

Smickan

:rotfl:

Thanks

They were all nice enough people, it was just I think I was too young etc to be given a responsibility to organise a meal for people who were very religious - which I am not in the slightest, and at least double my age .... let's just say a pub wasn't the best place

We did the baby picture thing too We had a current staff pic, and a baby pic at our open day and visitors had chance to match the pictures up on the stall that was to promote the community centre.

HopeElizzy

I work at a vets .........to tease a new vet about 7 years ago we told him the last vet to join the practice provided the christmas meal entertainment!;) As he believed us he brought along his guitar and sang a medley of 60's songs with the words changed to things relevant to the staff! It's a good job we had a room to ourselves that year because we were singing along with whatever he played on the guitar late into the night joined by the restaurant staff.We have since had vets join and have kept up our sneaky tradition and been believed every time! One vet did an Anne Robinson style quiz and as already suggested we've made things out of balloons. You never know what the next vet is going to do!
This year our meal is at a Turkish restaurant, complete with belly dancer, so who knows what our newest vet will do.:eek: