This year, the holiday season with the Coalition team was a mix of traditions and fun twists on classic favorites. As a global office, holiday cheer is celebrated in many languages, colors, and styles!
Deck the Halls
We started off this year’s holiday cheer when secret helpers decorated our LA office with Christmas lights, ornaments, and tinsel garlands.
Bright and green ornaments greeted us from the main entrance, along with lights and reindeer ears. Of course, no holiday scene would be complete without a tannenbaum fir and fireplace!
We had our very own Christmas palm tree, sporting lights and a groovy Santa hat. Behind it, the fireplace roared on our TV with a few of our favorite holiday tunes.
White Elephant Gift Exchange
For this year’s gift exchange, we decided to play White Elephant—a game in which people swap white elephant gifts and “steal” each other’s presents. As a good-humored take on the Secret Santa exchange, the Coalition team wrapped their quirkiest gifts and placed them underneath the tree.
We gathered around the tree and took turns unwrapping gifts. Among these were funky socks, salt and pepper shakers, Bean-Boozled jelly beans, coffee mugs with cozies, and even bottles of wine.
Hanukkah Care Package
As a culturally diverse and global company, Coalition loves to celebrate Hanukkah! This year, we were sent Hanukkah care packages from our Jewish team members in Israel. This little bag of goodies included traditional blue candles, dreidels, chocolate gold coins, and instructions for playing dreidel games.
During our group lunch, we spun dreidels and ate chocolate coins—we even challenged each other with dreidel games and learned a few Hebrew letters!
Lunch at Rush Street
For our Christmas lunch, we went to Rush Street in downtown Culver City, a buzzy venue with incredible food. We walked together down Culver Blvd. and took a picture by the 22-foot Christmas tree in Town Plaza.
Over salads and burgers, we talked about everyone’s holiday plans: flying back home for the holidays, making tamales, and shared our funniest Christmas stories.
It was a great way to end this year’s Friday group lunch. Overall, 2016 was a great year for Coalition, and we welcomed new team members all over the world. So what’s on our plate for 2017? More fun, more work, and more good times.
Happy holidays!
