Christmas Already?

At work this morning, my co-worker, Marcie, asked me if I wanted to start planning the Christmas party today. "Already?" I asked, innocently. "Well," she said, "It is November 1st..."

So, we started planning the Christmas party. I really wasn't in a Christmas party planning mood. I mean, after my last fiasco of the Opening Social...and then how only 2 kids came trick-or-treating last night (yes, some children did show up at our door a little before nine--a miracle, indeed), I wasn't feeling all too keen on over-planning for an ill-attended event.

Aside from my feeling sorry for myself, there were other reasons I didn't want to plan this party today.

First of all, Halloween was just yesterday. Do we really have to un-decorate from that holiday so quickly? Can't we just revel in the fact that the holiday is over without having to do anything about it? Apparently no. All the ghosts and jack-o-lanterns that adorned the office just yesterday have been replaced with turkeys and cornucopias.

Second, isn't there an unwritten rule that you should not decorate and/or prepare for and/or listen to Christmas music before Thanksgiving? (Personally, I break this last unwritten rule a lot. I like to think that since Canadian Thanksgiving is so early in October that I can listen to Christmas music a lot sooner than a regular American can.) I mean, I'm still trying to solidify our Thanksgiving plans (honestly, we don't have any yet) let alone plan on what we are going to do for Christmas.

Actually, I struggle thinking up what to have for dinner, let alone plan on what we are going to do for Christmas...

Third, I don't see why we make such a big deal about it anyway. Where I used to work, we had a Charlie Brown Christmas. We made snowflakes and paper chains out of old invoices. We decorated with a thrashed plastic Christmas tree and equally worn-out ornaments. We had a pot luck meal and played games and watched a cheesy Christmas film, like the Grinch (the original cartoon, of course). It was so relaxing and so much fun. I helped plan it one year. We had no budget and our meeting went something like this:

Who wants to make the sign up for food? Okay, great.
Who wants to make sure people bring games? Okay.
Who wants to sing Christmas carols? Okay, cool.
Ummm...so I'll see you all there.

And that was all. I was so hoping that this year's party would be something like that. No such luck.

We invite all the faculty, staff, dean's office, janitors, computer supports, stock room, retired faculty, postdocs, research associates...I could go on.

We're supposed to plan a nice, formal, sit-down banquet for like 200 people. Eek! I think it is doable. I made the invitations today so that we can send them out as soon as possible. I was checking the notes from last year's party (which I didn't attend) and the previous secretary sent out the invitations the end of October! I wasn't even thinking about this party until today. Apparently I was slacking off and should have had the invitations out already. I think that this is still enough notice though.

I suppose I need to get on the ball. After all, Christmas is only 53 days, 3 hours and 26 minutes away.