The elves are back and better than ever...

Last year at this time there was a “decorate your space” contest where I work. Yep, nothing like a little competition to get one in the holiday spirit. Some participants chose to decorate their personal cubes, others an office, or a window, or a door, but my department chose to decorate a wall...a communal wall. Well, actually my co-worker Paula did most of the decorating of our wall…the rest of us just shared in the credit. Paula came up with the idea of placing elves around a Christmas tree, tailored elves to fit something unique (or not) about each individual in our department. For instance, her personal elf had a sombrero because she LOVES Mexico…our boss Mark had a paint brush because he’s such a good artist…our big boss Carol had a tennis racket because she loves tennis…Stacey had a cowboy hat because she lives on a farm and loves horses...Lora an airplane because she owns one and loves to fly...Denise had a helmet because she loves motorcycles, and I, of course, had dogs because, well, you get the point. Although hard to tell from the picture below, the ornaments on our tree represented some of our big engineering "Wins” of 2009. How delightfully clever is that? Although I can't recall who won 1st or 2nd place that year, our elf tree ultimately won 3rd place and if my memory serves me correct the prize that year was . . . breakfast. Yeah that's it, plenty of bagels and fruit, or nuts, or something like that. (Click pics once for a good view, twice even better) 

Our wall of elves and 2009 3rd place winner. woot woot!

Some pics of our stiff competition below:

This window was kinda cool and somebody
had to know how to draw pretty darn good.

a joint effort (and waste of a lot of good wrapping paper)

a traditional looking Christmas tree...ho-hum.

a war-related effort (this one probably took 1st)

hmm...wonder what happened to 2008's wish list

a little inside humor
("Big J" snowman looking down on acquired companies...true story)

more acquired companies...[sigh]

cute...and easy cube (I could do this)

I strangely like the Grinch...a lot.

yawn...

not very attractive but a neat idea

a bit more attractive

This is my personal favorite. Yeah, that Mark Beumer...he went all out. :)

*****

Moving on to the 2010 annual "decorate your space" contest...The elves are back and better than ever! Paula, the busiest elf of us all has been busy sprucing up our departmental wall utilizing what else but last year's elf tree (see new and improved version below). Thanks to Paula and her ever faithful assistant Paul (our eager new garland and light stringer) things are looking up. The best and most cool thing about this new old tree is that not only last years elves are all present and accounted for but now there are two additional members to our family tree...elf Nicole with baby in the box, and elf Jill with brown dog (and to whom I say a hearty... "welcome, fellow dog lover").

In today's day, to not only retain worker elves but actually add to them is a wonderful thing. Now, if we can just nab 1st place and maybe get a little bacon and eggs with our bagels and fruit. hohoho...woot woot!

This could be a winner.