Celebrate Thanksgiving with swag

We were more than three years into our Zoom era. Kristy from HR had changed her stock background more than a dozen times, finally landing on a serene image of a Hawaiian sunset, even though we all know she’s logging in from snowy Syracuse. Mark from IT also found his niche with anime characters, and Susie from contracts decided a bold geometric pattern matched her busy personality best. 

Our new Employee Experience Manager, Katie had finally succeeded in encouraging us to at least turn our cameras on and participate in remote meetings. We might have had our microphones on mute and our kids still interrupted every five minutes, but she could see our tired faces, and that had to count for something. 

With that first step out of the way, she was now free to focus on a new initiative: ramping up team morale by adding more celebrations to the corporate calendar. At first, we humored her. Who doesn’t love a white elephant exchange at Christmas or a traditional Irish potluck on St. Patrick’s Day?

Soon, however, things started to get a little out of hand. Katie didn’t just want to celebrate the traditional Hallmark holidays, like Halloween and Valentine’s Day. She wanted everyone to get into even the most obscure holidays, such as Chocolate Chip Day, Friendship Day, and World Nutella Day.

Yet, the strangest thing of all happened when she insisted that we not only celebrate Thanksgiving but that we go straight-up turkey with it. Sure, given her zest and zeal for turning the ordinary into the extraordinary, we expected that she’d invite us all into the office and adorn the table with an abundant cornucopia, elegant leaf decor, and a bountiful spread of grandma’s country cooking. We did not think we’d see awesome Thanksgiving gifts at each table setting. 

In addition to curated snack boxes for us to take home, she’d also garnished each plate with a note card thanking us for all of our special traits. Maybe Katie knew it took a lot for us to actually drive to the building after years of clocking in from the couch, business jacket on top and pajama pants underneath. 

Or, maybe she really was just that generous. Maybe she knew that Thanksgiving is the ideal time for managers to show their employees how much they appreciate their hard work and collaboration, not just on one day, but every day. 

Either way, it was apparent that she’d spent hours googling Thanksgiving gift ideas, especially when we walked over to the giant chocolate fountain, which, in addition to marshmallows, Oreos, and fresh fruit for dipping, she’d also assembled a ton of SwagMagic gear. We didn’t know we were chilly until we spotted the sweet branded beanies and puffer vests, all designed to reward and acknowledge a job well done. Is it too early to start looking for the perfect thank you gifts to help her feel the love, too?

That was it. After the Thanksgiving party, which left us all full in body and spirit, we decided to come together and let Katie know how we felt. We were so grateful for how lavishly she was spoiling us, and we wanted to do something for her in return. After all, it isn’t often that a manager changes their avatar to Yoda for World Star Wars Day, or distributes “Power Up” stickers on Super Mario Day.

However, we had to admit we were starting to feel a little burned out. Instead of spending our time searching for unique thank you gifts to show our appreciation, we had to keep up with every new idea Katie introduced, which was happening on a more frequent basis. 

It went on for months, and the holiday exhaustion was very real. We knew we’d hit a breaking point when the breakroom started to fill up with excess teddy bears, a sad, leftover reminder of the gluttony that was National Give a Hug Day. Our HR team tried assembling them into small gift bags to distribute if anyone was feeling down, but how could we have a bad day when there was literally something random to celebrate every time we logged in? 

Eventually, our CEO had to step in. Professional thank you gifts, like the ones we offered in our SwagMagic Swag Store were one thing. These knickknacks and tchotchkes were something else altogether, and they had to go. So, he decided to put a stop to all of the madness.

This marked the end of celebrating every single holiday under the sun. However, we’d grown accustomed to being spoiled, treated, and pampered at every turn. We couldn’t go back to the early days of spreadsheets, emails, and that daily nagging sense of impending doom. We needed something to celebrate. 

As a company, we narrowed it down to 12 holidays. That’s one for every month unless we count August, when nothing exciting happens except the children finally brushing their hair and going back to school. We make up for that by doubling up in September, when Labor Day and World Beard Day both happen.

We did decide to keep Thanksgiving, too because Thanksgiving Gift Baskets are just too easy and fun to shop for. We know that we don’t have to search far and wide to find the perfect mugs, hats, or shirts to express our gratitude. We can send our closest colleagues curated gift boxes from SwagMagic and they’ll know they’re our favorites. 

In addition to finding the perfect gifts, we also settled on work-appropriate Thanksgiving games and even found ways to include our fully-remote team members so everyone could participate. 

Some of the events we planned included:

• Virtual Thanksgiving scavenger hunt
• Virtual Thanksgiving happy hour 
• Virtual Thanksgiving painting project (we don’t talk about Jim’s turkey portrait)

We even had a Thanksgiving award ceremony, with options to attend either in-person or remotely. We gave our awards and superlatives and made sure everyone walked away (or clicked out of the Zoom box) with something special. We gave a Thanksgiving gift basket for employees who went above and beyond but also kept some swag out for our partners and clients.

When it came to curating a Thanksgiving gift basket for Katie, our beloved employee experience manager, we knew just what she wanted -- that collapsible picnic basket she’d had her eye on for months. We pooled our money and surprised her with it, and it was the happiest we’d seen her since Learn Your Name in Morse Code Day back in January.  

Soon enough, it would be time to think of the perfect Thanksgiving gift basket for clients. But first, we had to show our in-house team a little more love.

Our Thanksgiving celebrations were in full swing, and it was time to get serious about our gift-giving. We started by searching SwagMagic for thank you gifts for employees, which led us to a ton of fun options, from insulated tumblers and ceramic mugs to ring lights and portable speakers. 

While we wanted to highlight a few select folks who stood out this past quarter, we also saved time and money by buying bulk thank you gifts for employees. These allowed us to spend less time intricately assembling clever employee appreciation gifts and more time thinking of the awards and trophies we wanted to hand out. After all, if you can’t acknowledge John from Accounting’s impeccable QuickBook skills during Thanksgiving, when else can you give him a shoutout? 

We also turned to SwagMagic to help us fill our company kitchen every day with snacks, swag, and small appreciation gifts for employees. All we had to do was browse the SnackMagic menu, and we found all of the cookies, chocolates, popcorn, and pretzels we needed! Did everyone find an excuse to walk by and graze every five minutes? Yes, they did, but we were feeling the holiday spirit so we let it slide.

Next, it was time to turn our focus inward, just a little. We wanted a way to bring the Thanksgiving spirit into each office, which meant the gifts needed to get a little more personal. 

We needed thank you gifts for coworkers, and SwagMagic once again hit it out of the park. Julie from the warehouse loved her canvas tote, Mark from Sales adored his customized notebook, and even Sarah the intern appreciated her new backpack. 

Not only was it easy to find thank you gifts for coworkers bulk style, but we could also customize our selections depending on the recipient’s taste. For instance, Jessie our receptionist is a natural comedian, so we knew we could go right to SwagMagic’s selection of funny thank you gifts for coworkers, and we’d find something just for her. We were right -- when we told her she needed a drink, she didn’t expect we’d show up with a full-blown cocktail canteen!

In addition to casting the spotlight on some of our favorite officemates, we also left out small thank you gifts for coworkers in the shared break room!

By the time we’d shared all of our gifts, the Thanksgiving spirit was still high but everyone’s participation was starting to wane. We ended up dropping the list down to just three holidays, but we had to make sure Thanksgiving was always on the list. For the next few years, we didn’t even need to buy new swag!

We could simply go into our storage closets, and we’d find a massive array of games and gifts from our past years, including super random extras from those eccentric national holidays Katie loved to recognize! Whether we needed thank you gifts for friends or thank you gifts for family members, all we had to do was ask for the closet key and start shopping!

Plus, because SwagMagic offers such a wide selection, we could even choose between thank you gifts for him or her. This meant Jim didn’t have to end up with a ladies trench coat, which he always ended up with at every White Elephant gift exchange. 

It was a dizzying year full of celebrations, but in a world that can often be unpredictable and more than a little stressful, we’ll relish every opportunity we get to show our friends and colleagues just how much we care.