Celebrating Thanksmas is a worthy thing to engage your team in. As your team works hard for the company, it’s important to always show them how much you appreciate them.
The tradition actually started out as a logistics issue with Marilyn's big family. Thanksgiving and Christmas are only a month apart. If you have multiple families you are trying to connect with, it can be too difficult to celebrate both holidays. As a result, Marilyn’s family decided to celebrate Thanksmas which happens between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Since they're both very important holidays, they make a point to get together once a year and, for the most part, nobody misses it. They give their thanks for the season and what the year has brought them and they also celebrate Christmas and what it means for them going into the next year.
At The Bottom Line CPA, we celebrate Thanksmas every first Friday of December.
A Peek into Our Thanksmas 2021!
Pick A Word
Part of what we do as a team is pick a word for ourselves every year that represents how we are feeling or a goal that we have for the year. Jessica also picked a phrase for the entire team. This year, the little phrase we tried to live by was, “shine and be kind.” For 2022, the words we’ve picked for ourselves are: shine, joy, improvement, crossover, compounding, realize, obtain, prioritize, and listen.
Cocktail Afterparty
We created some fresh cocktails at the end of the day, learning a few new recipes and some history behind the Tequila. We were to make three drinks and we only had 90 minutes to do it. For our non-drinkers, we made virgin versions of their drinks. That way, there was room for everybody at the table to have a good time the way they needed to.
Thank You, Neighbor!
We focused on receiving, giving, and loving in 2021 so we decided to keep the thank you's going this year. We got a double-sided board with a sign on both sides that reminds us of our theme for 2022. On the backside, it tells us how to say thank you in multiple different languages.
The Thanksmas Bags
We also had Thanksmas bags with snow and confetti because it's not a party until the trash bag and vacuum come out!
Numbers, Numbers
We looked at our results for 2021 and discussed our high-level financial targets for 2022. When we went through our 2021 numbers, we saw we had accomplished every goal we set out to accomplish. We're feeling good about our predictions for 2022 as a result of that effort.
Our greatest hope is for you to also spend time reflecting on and celebrating all the things that you did in 2021, whether you reached your goals or not. It can't always be about achievements.
Celebrating Thanksmas is one small way to build trust as a team, to stay healthy as a team, and to celebrate all the highs and lows that have come along the way.
If you want to learn more about celebrating Thanksmas as a team, check out Episode 070: TBL Team Thanksmas 2021 Highlights.
