COVER STORY
Our guide to keeping your head (mentally) intact this holiday season.
If you think the Grinch is the only one who dreads the holidays, you’re wrong. Call us Scrooges (or just casually cynical), but we’re pretty damn sure that excess amounts of confetti, fake snow and repeated Christmas playlists will eventually begin to drive you insane. So without further ado, here’s a guide to keeping your head intact this holiday season — or at least until someone pops a cork at the office.
UPDATE YOUR PLAYLIST
Enough already with the songs about what your ex did to you last Christmas and Rudolph getting bullied for having a freakish nose. And why your true love sent to you six geese a-laying, we’ll never know. So make sure to get yourself a pair of noise-cancelling headphones and a new playlist with these updated holiday tunes.
Baby It’s Cold Outside — Idina Menzel & Michael Bublé This Christmas — Chris Brown
Winter Wonderland/Here Comes Santa Claus — Snoop Dogg & Anna Kendrick (Pitch Perfect 2 Original Soundtrack). Running out of options? YouTube any Christmassy song and add “ukulele cover” or “trap remix” to the end.
FLIP THE SWITCH
So what if you’re not travelling outside the country this holiday? Your boss, colleagues and clients do not need to know this information, so switch the “Out of office (aka “F*** off, I’ll reply when I want to)” notification on your email account and mute your Line work group after 5pm. If it’s urgent, they can make the bloody effort to call.
START YOUR COUNTDOWN
Advent calendars are cute and delicious — when you’re nine years old. But when you’re working nine-to-five, a piece of self-rewarded chocolate isn’t enough. Fastforward time by having something to look forward to each day of the upcoming week and marking it down on your calendar, be it the annual office party, a secret office party with colleagues who don’t actually annoy you, happy hour Wednesdays, or buy one, get one free Starbucks day. You get the idea.
There are two ways of which this could go. A) You’re being your usual antisocial self with your face glued to your phone, interacting with others only when you’re asked to pass the cake. B) You actually make the effort to have some fun by conversing with people outside your department, showing off a party trick, — or maybe spiking the punch (people will thank you, we promise). Our advice? Go for latter. Be remembered as the legend who brought genuine fun to an office event. Know your limits, though — nobody likes a puker.
REDEEM & REWARD
It’s been a long and arduous year. You’ve worked so hard (or at least pretended to), and put up with so many mishaps — not managing to score a Maroon 5 ticket the second time around, for example, and not be able to board your flight to Chiang Mai because of the threat of sky lanterns. You’ve been so good this year, you sure as hell deserve whatever it is you want, whether it’s splurging on something you don’t need or binge-eating seasonal Krispy Kremes. So when you’re faced with a should-I-buy-this or do-I-deserve-this dilemma, just say yes. Remember, it’s holiday season and anything is possible. Except democracy.
SEND HONEST GREETINGS
There’s only so many times you can write “Happy Holidays” and “Happy New Year!” on greeting cards and in emails. So put on your thinking cap and get creative with your wording, or at least aim to write something so funny that reading it makes the recipient spit out their coffee.