Foundry Spatial Presents: A Very Covid Christmas
By: Foundry Spatial
Tags: Covid 19, Corporate Culture, Secret Santa, Covid Christmas

With the pandemic giving the Grinch a run for his money, this year’s holiday season is looking a little different for all of us. Yet, just like the Whos in Whoville, Foundry Spatial isn’t going to let anything steal our Christmas spirit.

Though a typical Foundry Christmas begins with decorating of the office and concludes with a holiday dinner at one of our favourite local restaurants, we improvised this year and devised the perfect plan to stay safe and still celebrate.

The Foundry Spatial Covid Christmas Game Plan:

Phase One: The Assignment

Given that we aren’t able to partake in our usual festivities, the Foundry Team decided to institute a new tradition of virtual Secret Santa. Leading up to Christmas, we all received a FaceTime call from two elves, better known the other eleven months of the year as the daughters of our team member Merie, giving us the name for our gift-giving mission. Over the next few weeks, we all put our Santa hats on and sought out the perfect gift.

Phase Two: Operation Exchange

Once everyone had bought, wrapped, and addressed their gift, each team member received designated drop-off and pick-up times at the office backdoor to ensure social distancing and sanitizing protocols could be followed. Our Toronto-based UX Designer and the Victoria-based team member who pulled her name out of the hat, of course, had the extra step of sending their gifts by sleigh across Canada.

Phases Three: The Opening

Arguably the most challenging step, team members had to exercise an immense amount of self-control and patience leading up to the much-anticipated Secret Santa Google Meet call. One-by-one, we took turns opening our gifts and trying to guess the team member behind each thoughtful present. Once that was over, the team surprised management with gifts to thank them for all the hard work they’ve done to make our transition to an online office as seamless and enjoyable as possible.

Phase Four: Cheesy Celebrations

With our new goodies in hand, the team split up to finish the workday and reconvene after work for our virtual team dinner. As an office full of foodies, pizza delivery wasn’t exactly going to cut it, so we had a customized charcuterie board delivered to each team member by a local charcuterie business. Seeing as a charcuterie board doesn’t exactly travel well, we sought out the advice of a good friend and Toronto-based cheese connoisseur to recommend the best charcuterie on the East Coast so Alex could join in on the tasty festivities.

Phase Five: Betrays and Blankets

Though our team is a tight-knit group, nothing can drive a wedge quite like a surprise game of virtual White Elephant during the team dinner. Turns out that a Kirkland queen-size blanket (pictured top right) does, in fact, trump besties. But, as the ultimate winner and new owner of the coveted blanket said, “don’t hate the player, hate the game”! Safe to say this new tradition will be one that stays for years to come.

Phase Six: Getting Distance

There’s no denying that 2020 has been a mentally and physically draining year for all of us. Despite everything going on in the world right now, our team showed up and exceeded our expectations every day. So we’re closing our office to allow each team member to relax, reflect, and reset for the coming year. This blog post, Getting Distance by Rohan Rajiv, really resonates with us as it speaks to our thoughts behind the office closure. We are firm believers that a happy team is a productive team, and we can’t wait to see everyone’s smiling, well-rested faces back in January 2021.

From all of us at Foundry Spatial, we wish you Happy Holidays and a wonderful New Year!