It was eleven years ago when the retired generals officially took over the place I had been working. They announced that the regular Thanksgiving dinner celebration would not be like it always had been. Formerly, it was a pretty chill event with everyone bringing in food and setting up their contributions next to the break room. You could wander freely back and forth to the big conference room, sit at the conference room table, eat as much as you wanted all day, then scoot out early with a full belly.
Naturally, this was problematic to the new leaders. So, General I-Forget-His-Name had his secretary send out the memo saying that Thanksgiving was going to happen at precisely 11-hundred-hours in the warehouse this year. This threw the long timers into a tizzy because…well, because… the warehouse! Where would people sit? And is it clean enough to actually eat in there?
General I-Forget-His-Name, to his credit, listened to the concerns and had a team organized to set up folding tables and chairs – which I think had to be rented. A full schedule with the people’s names and the time they were to mobilize was issued on Monday. I was assigned DECORATIONS because I was in marketing and it only made sense to the General. The people who had previously been in charge of setting Thanksgiving up were kind of irritated as this was their holiday that they had been setting up forever.
Anyhow, I took my assignment to heart. I surveyed the space of the warehouse and decided that the lights should be dim because the place was kind of gross. We also needed some sort of screen from all the warehouse clutter to make the place more inviting. I was going to transform the warehouse into a cozy space to eat Thanksgiving dinner with my co-workers.
That night I collected large branches and mounted them in buckets full of cement. I bought tiny white, twinkling Christmas tree lights to hang on the trees that I had created. I also bought pin lights to “uplight” the “trees”.
I foraged for bittersweet along the roads to hang on my trees.
Thinking of the budget, I forwent table clothes and opted for brown butcher paper and bought a ton of tea light candles. Then I set out to make the floral arrangements. They were lovely. I had worked as a floral designer in Boston and in Connecticut during my formative years and it all came back. I did a dozen “long and low” table arrangements worthy of a wedding with lilies and sunflowers and pomegranates.
I had two days to do this, on top of my regular work, and WOW did it turn out awesome! People were sneaking in to see the set up and were eager to claim one of the table arrangements. The receptionist at the front desk set up a raffle.
The one problem came minutes before 11-hundred-hours when one of the women who had formerly been in charge of setting up Thanksgiving came in and freaked out because I hadn’t gotten forks and knives. We got in a big debate about the definition of the word DECORATIONS and she whips out a cut-out of a turkey -like one of those things hanging in an elementary school classroom during the month of November. This utensil lady immediately called in the CFO of the company who was quick to ask which budget all the flowers were coming out of.
Long story short: just as the room sat in stunned silence as General I-Forget-His-Name was beginning with, “Let us all give thanks to our Lord God…” (See, no one had ever really made a thing about PRAYING before chowing down before) Utensil Lady comes dashing in with all the random silverware and leftover boxes of plastic knives and forks she could find. The whole thing was a huge success! And I was out of there within a few months. :-)
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
