D works in marketing/sales for a European company. All offices throughout the world close from end of day 12/23 to 1/4. She gets these days off in addition to three weeks of vacation. Some people will work from home during this time but she won’t need to. This is a great benefit!
9 parties?! Bring them on!! 
Just kidding.
Mr.'s employer is very scroogy about holidays. The dinner is for employees only (and so are all other functions). They used to have a paid week off for the holidays… no more. Last year people were told that according to the new policy, the paid week was no longer there and they HAD to take a mandatory vacation - on their dime! - between Christmas and new year because all Europe was shutting down.
We get very typical startup perks. A couple of days off and a lunch.
Solo practitioner so far all I’ve gotten is a postcard from one of the engineers I work with.
If I could shut down I would between Christmas and new years but I can’t let one section of the business close and not the other. We deal with hospitals and they never close.
My dh was given the gift of shortened work hours and mandatory vacation - all unpaid as part of the year end belt tightening for all IT contractors at his large Japanese company. Scrooges.
Wow, a few scrooges for sure these last few posts! (the employers, not you guys!!)
Not even reading past the first post. Nope. 41 years working holidays, weekends, evenings and nights…“perks” is not a word associated with being a healthcare worker. Now,however, I can talk the perks of being retired all day long. 
When working at law firms, we usually got a $$ bonus but no extra time off. However, we got a ton of food gifts sent to the office during the month of december. We had breakfasts and candy and nuts, sometimes liquor. We’d fight over the nice baskets the stuff came in. My sister’s firm gave everyone a ham. Normal parties.
Working for the government, we of course had the holiday off, and they usually let you go 3-4 hours early on the Eve, but other than that you took the time off just like any other vacation time. No bonuses, limited food gifts sent to the office, pot luck type parties, not as much fun.
I started with a new company last year as a remote worker. They have a fairly lavish holiday party for their mostly younger employees, but since I’m remote (work on the other side of the country) I was sent a $100 gift card.
This year I received a big FedEx package. It contained a nice coffee mug with the company logo, a packet of hot cocoa mix and some mini marshmallows, and a $50 gift card. I won’t complain about the gift, but I would have preferred the $100 gift card instead.
I’m very excited that we get December 24 off as a paid holiday!
I’m very happy with my company and what they do for us. We have our big company meal right before Thanksgiving, which is a Thanksgiving lunch in our nice lunch/meeting space. We have about 900 employees at the corporate office. We have a Christmas party on a Saturday evening in early December which includes spouses/SOs and is very, very nice and fun. It has been at a nice venue in the past, but this year they transformed the corporate “big” areas, along with huge heated tents, into a truly magnificent Vegas-themed venue.
Yesterday (Friday) is the kids party and everyone can bring their young kids to the office (same big lunch/meeting space) and there are crafts, Santa, Christmas decorations, food etc for the kiddos. Our corporate officers share the Santa duties. It’s really fun and well attended.
We get Christmas Eve off if we donate to United Way, which is our main corporate charity. We leave early the day before that and usually get to leave early the day before most holidays. We wear jeans through the end of the year. Departments do different lunches and gift exchanges. I am a believer in “gifting down” and don’t expect anything from my direct reports. I get food gifts from outside law firms which we all share.
This is a busy time of year for the people at our company - especially those NOT in the corporate office- so we do what we can to offer full support. I am always available by email or cell even when I am not at work. I don’t mind that. I signed up for it! I believe I work for the best company in the world, and I am grateful.
"I’m going to have a glass of wine and try not to think about why I have to go to school on Monday and Tuesday of next week. ".
I don’t think there was anyone on here who wasn’t working up until Christmas - next week is just a short week for everyone.
I get that, Pizzagirl. I only meant that it was hard because all the other school districts were done on Friday.
All the school districts in my area have school Mon and Tues with an early dismissal on the 23rd, regardless of SE status. Doesn’t your state mandate the number of school days, so schools who are off next week must be in session on days in which your school has off to make up for those days.
Right. We have a state law that does not allow us to start before Labor Day. A district may request a waiver to start before that and I think the others probably did this since Labor Day was late this year. I’m sure we will all work the same number of days. I love my job, I love my co-workers, and I especially love my kids. Everyone please excuse what must have sounded like complaining. Back to holiday perks…
Daughter is a teacher and her last day till Jan. 5 was yesterday - so two weeks plus a day time off.
Businesses contribute gift cards for an in-school lottery. D won a $50 gift card to Walmart. The principal drew one name from a list of teachers who had perfect attendance in November/December. D won that also - $150. (I think the principal did the same for Sept./Oct.) She also got student gifts which included another round of gift cards to Target/Starbucks/etc. So overall a lot of perks.
And by the way she loves her job - the school, co-workers - and adores her little ones.
My D who is a teacher came home yesterday with a trunkload of generous gifts from her kids. She is off until January 4th. I’m actually a little surprised that there are places in the U.S. that don’t allow for two weeks off over Christmas. I guess maybe I’m mis-remembering when I was in school in NJ many years ago. My D loves her job but she is definitely ready for two weeks off!
H worked for a consulting firm for several years that had 10-15 employees scattered across the US and Canada. Every year at Christmas they would fly everyone and spouses for an all-expenses paid weekend in a different place. The highlight of the weekend was renting out a “hot” new restaurant in town for the evening and enjoying an amazing multi-course meal with fantastic wine and cocktails. Plus, at the end of the meal, they announced everyone’s yearend bonus. We enjoyed weekends in Boston, Toronto, Chicago, San Francisco and Orlando. It was great while it lasted. But it was a victim of its own success. The company eventually grew too big to host something like that. H left the firm about that time so I have no idea what they do now.
My job? I always had to work Christmas eve and Christmas day. I was a pastor of a church. And no lavish parties, bonuses or anything else. Occasionally, I had parishoners who gave me particularly nice gifts such as gift cards. But mostly just cookies!
We have a retail as well as seasonal tourist oriented business. Times are tough here for many reasons . We haven’t been able to give out any kind of bonus for quite some time, but we do host an employee party every year. I really wanted to not do it this year because it is a drain on me…it is held at our home and everyone has a really good time. Since we have employees who are teenagers with summer jobs as well as some adults that are either displaced from former higher paying jobs or key players.
Some " alumni " come every year…most are the kids who grew up working with us and now have careers , but the party serves as a reunion of sorts
It is usually the day after Christmas which honestly is exhausting and stressful for me after all the food prep I do for Christmas …at least I have one day in between this year.
Last year was a stressful time in our family…youngest daunter got rejected from the only school she wanted to go to, middle daughter decided to leave her serious , live in BF and also a tragedy hit our community that impacted the daughter who got the denial email….I got a stomach bug the day after the party that took me down hard, I presume from the stress level….perhaps this is why I wanted to back out this year
Because of how stressful the party is for me, I moved it to January and started doing it every other year. I suggest you change it to accommodate you or enlist more help or move it out of your house and let someone else host of possible.
I work in the academic world. Generally no big parties and such as we are all grading finals. Some departments get together for a lunch or dinner. But we do get many weeks off between semesters. That is good.
But the corporate world for my kids is different. D2 had a department lunch with champagne, a corporate after hours party with open bar and lots of food. She has already received hundreds of dollars and bottles of wine from bosses. This week will most likely bring more.o
She also got a year end bonus and salary increase. Not bad for only working there 6 months.
D1 is always being taking out by brokers to the top restaurants in NYC, or the world for that matter, throughout the year. It intensifies during the holiday season. I’m sure she is not allowed to take any direct financial gift. Her bonus and pay raise, if any, is told to her a few weeks after the holiday season.
S’s bank moved their holiday party to January this year, He could not attend because of other obligations in the past few years. So now he can.
I liked the different festivities and people putting out food in the past. I understand being sensitive to different cultures and religions, but I miss the old days. I never felt people were left out. But I guess they did.