Christmas Breakfast

I took my co-workers to breakfast this morning. We went to Mimi's Cafe. I like it there, but it's been at least three years since we have gone. Last year got hectic and we didn't go out until around June. The year before that we were informed that we could not do breakfast, so had to find a place for lunch instead.

I had the "Pain Perdue" which is french toast stuffed with marmalade and cream cheese, topped with a glob of butter and syrup. It included two sausages and two eggs (I had them over easy) and a batch of season potatoes. It also included a juice, and I chose cranberry. I ordered a mug of hot cocoa before breakfast and had coffee afterward. I am not sure what they do, but their hot cocoa is particularly good. One of my co-workers is on a special diet, and when he asked what I had ordered, I told him "sugar and fat". All in all, quite decadent.

I bought them all a gift card to Blockbuster and included a package of red vines. My wife had the cute idea of using raffia to tie it all together, and I thought it looked great. She was not so happy with the way it turned out.

They collected up and gave me a very generous gift. They included a $25 gift card to Starbucks. I love getting out of the house and away from the kids for a little time with my wife, and we like to sit and relax in the local Starbucks for our "dates". I had already gotten ahold of a $20 card from our section party, so we should be set through the holidays with plenty of outings and time together. They also gave me a $100 American Express gift card, so I need to figure out what I will spend that on. I've been talking about a Quad Core CPU and motherboard for about a year now, but haven't managed to go out and buy one. Maybe I'll wait for the iCore 7 chip to come down in price. I'm sure I NEED all that processing power, though I haven't figured out why yet.

Work Holiday Party

We had a nice Christmas luncheon at work today. We normally go out for lunch, but due to the economy, we decided to have it in our conference room. About 30 people attended. We have food from a variety of cultures, making it very interesting - Egg rolls, Indian "Lemon" rice, curried meats and vegetable dishes, Pad Thai, broccoli salad, fruit salad, and other assorted goodies. Our manager brought in a small collection of gifts which were given away by lottery.

We then followed up with a game of "stealing" presents. Everyone who brought a generic gift is given a number. When their number is called, they have the option to get a wrapped gift from under the tree, or steal someone else's gift. If a gift is stolen, the person who lost their gift then gets the option to steal someone else's gift or pick a new gift from the pile. They can not steal back what was stolen from them in the same round, unless that gift passes into someone else's hand during the round. We chose to allow a gift to be stolen up to three times before it has a permanent owner. We had 25 players, and I was the last player. I brought in a fondu set, and was happy that someone thought it nice enough to steal. I ended up with a gift card to Starbucks which will help fund my upcoming dates with my wife.

We also collected up money and arranged to "adopt" four needy families this Christmas season. We gave them gift cards to the grocery store and WalMart so that they could purchase things they needed and hopefully have a better Christmas than they would have otherwise. Two families came to our office in the afternoon. One family had five kids and the other had one. We expect two more families to come in next week, but I will be out of the office during that time. It was nice to know that we had an impact on families who need some additional help.

I'll be taking my immediate co-workers out to breakfast on Thursday.