In Optis Christmas is always celebrated in a grand way. This time too it had kept up the tradition. We had a small Christmas Tree which was beautifully decorated and all the gifts were kept under it. Every year we have Secret Santa – Its a small game where a person buys a gift for the other person and the other person has to guess who gave him/her the gift. If the guess is not correct then he/she has to perform whatever the crowd says. And like every time, this time also no one agreed to the guesses even to the correct guesses; you can say we wanted to give everyone the opportunity to showcase their talent. Now this is what normally people see, the party, the enjoyment and the ambiance. This time I wanted to share along with the celebration what goes behind to accomplish all these. So here it goes..

23rd December evening Ravi, Divya, Ashokan, Arun, Umi, Manjunath, Chandru and Myself stayed after the office to decorate Optis for Christmas, 2009. Now you must be thinking who are these people, let me introduce to you one by one. Ravi – BD Manager, Divya – HR, Ashokan and Arun – Trainees, Umi – Office boy, Manjunath and Chandru – Security and Myself – Programmer. All of us worked together to decorate Optis. We had a very tight budget but still managed to pull out lot of things. We got around 100 balloons, ribbons, posters of Santa Claus and many more things. The work was divided among us, like Ashokan and Myself were suppose to blow all the balloons, Ravi and Divya were suppose to tie knots of the balloons, they were also suppose to download some pictures of Santa Claus and bells, Arun was busy with his movie editing (This is a different chapter all together. Will let you guys know later about this later.) Umi along with Manjunath and Chandru were the ones who pasted the ribbons, balloons and posters everywhere around. Both of us, Ashokan and Myself were tired blowing so many balloons. And I guess so were the others. Later some of us had dinner and some went home to have. We left around midnight.

24th December morning, almost all came to decorate Optis and make it look even better. All of us collected money and gave it to Umi to get us those Christmas Caps. After the decoration was completed Optis looked completely different. It was lovely, may be because we all contributed in making it happen in some way or the other. Celebration goes well when everyone works together to celebrate. Now all the decorations were done. But we needed some more cash for the snacks and drinks. Now this was an issue, but Divya, Shyam – System Admin and Umesha Sir – Vice President came to rescue, all of them contributed for snacks and drinks. Everything was ready the gifts, the snacks, the drinks, the people, but where is Santa?

Actually while all these was taking place I was getting dressed up as Santa. Since Sanjith – Software Engineer, had gone to his place to bury his bachelorhood (One more story. This I guess he will be in a better position to tell.) I was asked to take his place. Now getting dressed up as Santa is not so easy as it looks. I had a tough time trying to get the belly. But somehow managed it with the help of Umi. As I came out of the room shouting, “Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas” most of the people started laughing. I was a bit confused whether they are happy to see Santa Claus or am I looking funny. But didn’t bother much and started running here and there carrying a small pouch with some toffees. After all the running and dancing Santa distributed the toffees.

It was time to distribute the gifts and it was done one by one. After all the gifts were distributed we had snacks and drinks. We also had many videos and pictures taken while distributing the gifts. After all these the trainees had shot one movie. We all had a great time watching it. It was really good.

This is how Christmas was celebrated in Optis for the year 2009.