2008 – It’s A Wrap
The holidays are over, and we’re left with a warm glow.
We continued with our office tradition of giving back and supporting our local community. Each year, we collect monetary donations from the Kindle employees, and the Kindle Communications Partners match our donations. Everyone’s generous donations allow us collectively to be generous with those less fortunate. We adopted 5 families through St. Vincent De Paul on the south side of Chicago, and bought holiday gifts for each member of the family. The day of shopping at Target was exciting –12 shopping carts overflowing with holiday presents for over 20 people. We even got our own check-out lane at Target!
The shopping completed, we decided that the only way to get the multitude of presents wrapped in a timely manner was to have a wrapping party! One Wednesday before Christmas, after the office closed for the day, we put on our Santa hats, turned on the holiday lights in the office, cranked the Christmas music on the ipod, got out the wrapping paper and tape, and went present-wrapping crazy.
Our goal was to wrap as many presents individually as possible so the kids would have lots of presents to open on Christmas morning. With 25 Kindle employees and friends wrapping multiple holiday gifts for 21 people, the mayhem ensued – paper flying, ribbons curling, tape everywhere.
It was a good teambuilding activity for our office – people teamed up to wrap presents together, some folks were just helpers and organizers, and others cut the wrapping paper while another wrapped the gift.
When all the presents were wrapped, labeled, put into festive bags, and organized by family, we felt really good, and warm inside.
After the feel-good portion of the evening, we decided to get our game on. Because we are all competitive by nature, we had a baby picture contest. Each of us brought in a baby photo of ourselves, and then we competed to see who could get the most correct answers.
Competition was tough. Some people haven’t changed since they were kids and were super easy to identify, while some people brought in baby photos that wouldn’t have been able to be identified by even their birth mothers! Three very excited people won the photo contest and were happy with their American Express gift certificates.
The evening concluded with yummy cookies and desserts supplied by our Kindle employees and friends. The evening was a huge success from all angles – social, charity, and teambuilding.
Here’s the most festive holiday baby photo of the evening – can you guess which Kindle Communications employee this is?
Happy New Year, everyone!
