Last night the entire staff of the Flying Pig had a holiday party. Sad as it might sound, this is the first one in four years. We decided to have a dinner in a private room at the local Italian restaurant whose chef shops at the store. In the midst of another record-breaking holiday season, celebrating together seemed very restorative and important.
We all work hard and there are several staffers who never work together and only see each during staff meetings, so a dinner with everyone and their spouses was great fun.  Elizabeth, the grand master of fun things, had managed to find flying pig trophies for everyone. Each woman (we are without a male co-worker at the moment) received her own trophy with a brief description of her merits. For instance, PJ, our youngest staffer’s said: Fantasy pro and lover of projects.  Everyone loved their trophies. Elizabeth even surprised me with one and I was touched.
Elizabeth made a toast thanking everyone for their hard work this year and there were several tears shed. It was a lovely speech. We all made toasts, some spot on imitations of each other and some much needed venting about a few of the more ridiculous retail moments we’ve had. We pretty much laughed through the dinner, causing one staffer’s husband to say, “No wonder you love working at the bookstore.”
Sometimes it’s easy in the day-to-day work world to forget to just spend time with these great people. It was so delightful to get out of the store and look around the table and think, “Damn, these guys are fun.’