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My personal favorite time of year is the holidays – our office strives on giving back to our community through various events and fundraisers. It’s beautiful; it brings a warmth to the chilly December days that darken too quickly. Our brokers’ financial generosity is overwhelming and deeply appreciated, but we tend to ask them for one more donation in the much more festive form of attending our annual Northgate Holiday Party.
Our past parties have been at pubs or wineries, but this year we decided to forego the fanciness and bring the party straight to our office. We crowdfunded to have mouth-watering hor’dourves from Arista catering that included coconut shrimp, Mediterranean skewers, polenta crostini, stuffed mushrooms, and more. Our largest conference room was converted to a wintery Bake-Off Competition, with Janet Irons taking 1st place. In addition, we filled a tin Santa with chocolates & cash and hid him deep in our fake office plant in the lobby – Damian Gibbs, husband of our broker Marian Gibbs, was successful in spotting him and claiming victory.
The sheer amount of decorating we undertook to create the holiday ambiance took weeks…and weeks. In the end, we used 40+ boxes of lights, 5 Christmas trees (one of them was donated by Jason Viydo and stood over 17ft tall!), 10+ centerpieces, 3 themed conference rooms, a winter photo area, laser lights, a karaoke stage, and countless handmade decorations and paper lanterns. We hung curtains to cover the business aspects of the office and we hid all of the computers & printers out of sight. It was no longer a Real Estate office – this was the North Pole.
It was truly a sight to behold; Frank Sinatra’s smooth holiday hits played from every speaker, our brokers and their loved ones came dressed in their finest attire, and we were able to sit back and reap the benefits of our hard labor. People ate, drank, sang, danced, mingled, drank, and by the end of the night when I’d enjoyed the evening and could no longer find my shoes, the brokers told us one by one that it was one of the best holiday parties in memory. I have to agree with them – there was an astounding sense of comfort and joy in surrounding ourselves with the people we love in a recognizable yet drastically changed environment. This party will go in the books and be fondly remembered.
