Many companies have Christmas parties, but no one celebrates the holidays like Mid-States Utility and Keizer Co. With four locations, things get quite exciting, especially when three of those locations each needs to plan and host their own Christmas party. Each preparing and enacting their own activities and celebrations.
Today you get quite a treat as we delve into this years holiday celebrations from each location. What they did, the food they ate, and how they show the employees appreciation for the fantastic year we’ve had. Additionally, you’ll get to hear a couple of personal traditions and recipes from individual employees. We hope this helps to pump you up for your coming holiday celebrations and puts you in the Christmas spirit!
Sioux Falls, South Dakota
The first Christmas party was held on December 6, 2019 at our Sioux Falls location. Like each location, many of the office and service staff assist in the preparation and setting up of the party as well as ordering the catering service and securing awards for the various games and activities they plan to do. It’s a lot of work, but it can also be an incredible amount of fun to prepare the day’s activities.
Food
It doesn’t really matter what holiday you’re celebrating, food is an integral part of the celebration. Sioux Falls had a fried chicken focus with their caterer, complete with sides and a number of flavors of cheesecake and cupcakes for dessert.
Activities & Contests
Ugly Sweater Contest
A classic tradition for Mid-States and Keizer that you will notice at each of our locations is the annual Ugly Sweater Contest. Employees are encouraged to buy or make an ugly sweater and wear it that day (during the party) and all employees get a vote to whose they think is particularly grotesque or just plain funny. Below you can see a number of pictures depicting just how unpleasantly creative the Sioux Falls employees can be with their choice of Christmas sweaters.
(Side Note) You may notice that we keep an open-mind to what can be entered into the “sweaters” contest. We also allow suits, vests, and anything with a ridiculous Christmas tone to it.
Who is that Baby?
A fun, new addition to the Christmas party was the Who is that Baby picture contest. A poster board featuring a number of baby pictures brought in by several employees. The pictures were labelled from numbers 1 – 14. Each attending employee received a paper with 18 names (4 extras to throw people off a little bit). The employees were tasked with figuring out which baby picture corresponded with the appropriate name on the sheet. It was a tough challenge and it was a huge success with employees gathering tightly around the poster-board of pictures trying to find those tiny hints and giveaways on the pictures.
A fun, new addition to the Christmas party was the Who is that Baby picture contest. A poster board featuring a number of baby pictures brought in by several employees. The pictures were labelled from numbers 1 – 14.
Each attending employee received a paper with 18 names (4 extras to throw people off a little bit). The employees were tasked with figuring out which baby picture corresponded with the appropriate name on the sheet. It was a tough challenge and it was a huge success with employees gathering tightly around the poster-board of pictures trying to find those tiny hints and giveaways on the pictures.
How Many M&Ms
A classic challenge that involves filling a jar up with M&M candies and challenging attendees to guess how many of the treats are hidden inside. Winner gets the jar of M&Ms as well as any other prizes you decide to tack onto it. It’s important to know that there are math equations that can often times help employees get incredibly close to the total. If you’ve filled a jar or another cylindrical shaped receptacle it can be as simple as calculating the area.
A = 2πrh+2πr2
But there’s a very simple way to discourage this little trick. Add different sized M&Ms into the mix. Peanut M&Ms are the largest of the candy’s variations, whereas mini M&Ms are the smallest. It makes calculating the potential number nearly impossible. Whatever the case we had a lot of fun with this quick competition.
The Special Seat
Most attendees didn’t realize that, hidden on the back of the chair they sat on, was a number and anyone that might have noticed them had no idea that it was part of the party. Near the end of the celebration they did a surprise raffle, drawing one of the numbers from a tin and employee sitting at the corresponding seat won a prize. Simple as that.
Omaha, Nebraska
Our Omaha branch is known to be the “king of company parties” with their annual Halloween Party always being a huge success and the Christmas holiday is no different. Oftentimes, the Des Moines branch and its employees will come to Omaha to celebrate the holiday alongside them.
Food
Whereas Sioux Falls went with fried chicken, Omaha decided on BBQ, alongside some brisket and of course the appropriate sides. They also offered cheesecake for dessert. No one left hungry after this holiday celebration.
Activities & Contests
Ugly Sweater Contest
Just like with the other two branches, Omaha holds a vote on who wore the ugliest sweater to the holiday party and a prize is awarded to the one sweater that really stuck out. Below are some of the awesome contenders for the ugliest sweater.
Basket Raffle
Special thanks to Lisa, one of our newest members to the Omaha team, for putting in an incredible amount of time and work to get the many baskets ready for the Christmas Party. Each basket had a theme to it and a number of items inside that fit that theme. Each attendee was given a set number of tickets with their names on them. These tickets could be placed inside the drawing bins next to each of the themed baskets. That way, if you really wanted a particular basket, you could put more of your tickets into it. Mark then drew from each basket to determine the winner. To ensure that everyone had a chance, he only gave one prize to each employee, even if their name was drawn more than once. Some examples of the beautiful baskets are featured below.
A Holiday Recipe
Crystal, an office staff at the Omaha branch, offered a popular recipe she prepares for her family every Christmas.
Sioux City, Iowa
Finally, came the Sioux City Christmas Party. Sioux City took a couple notes from the books of the other branches and incorporated those aspects into their own celebration.
Food
Sioux City followed Omaha’s lead in the BBQ front, hosting a meal of pulled pork and brisket as well as all the sides and fixings. For desserts they offered a number of cookies and cupcakes from the well-known local bakery Sugar Shack.
Activities & Contests
Ugly Sweater Contest
We continue with one of the most popular and well-known Christmas Party competitions: the ugly sweater contest. People at the Sioux City branch got just as into it as the others did, with quite a lot of clever creativity. Below are some examples of the ugliest sweaters out there.
Who is that Baby
After seeing the success of Sioux Falls’ Who is that Baby photo contest, Sioux City decided to hold their own. Managing to bring together 25 baby pictures of employees the game presented quite a challenge. The winner of the competition scoring 13 of the 25 correct. Although it was tough, it was an incredibly fun activity.
How Many M&Ms
Another take-away from the Sioux Falls celebration was the How Many M&Ms challenge with a prize of candy and more candy! Christmas is notorious for the number of sweets and treats consumed during the season and that’s no different here at Mid-States Utility.
Christmas Trivia
Both Sioux City and Sioux Falls handed out sheets of Christmas-themed questions for attendees to answer. They graded the sheets and the individual with the highest score received a prize! It’s important to throw in questions from different Christmas related “genres” from movies, to music to holiday history that way everyone has a chance.
A Tradition and Recipe
One of our HR representatives, Marlenne, shares with us her family’s holiday tradition as well as one of their delicious recipes.
Okay so we celebrate Christmas Eve we make a lot of good Mexican food, one that a lot of people would be familiar with is red pork tamales. We do a Mexican tradition of “the birth of Jesus”. So we have one baby Jesus which we pray and sign to him. We pass him around and everyone kisses his forehead and get some candy.
Marlenne
A Common Practice at All Our Branches
There are a handful of activities and traditions that all our branches typically their Christmas celebrations with. Those are listed below. Each one is meant to show both the owners’ appreciation for each and every employee that works for them, as well as to show the owners and the company itself how much appreciation the employees have.
A Christmas Gift
Following the food and activities the owners of the company, Shane and Stacy, take the stand where they are presented with their gift from the company. Employees pitch in and put together a financial gift in their name to a charity decided on by the employees.
Sioux Falls decided to make their donation out to one of their customers who supports The Warrior Ride. The customer, Paul Thacker, is a former X Games champion who jumps snowmobiles. The organization he manages offers snowmobile experiences for disabled veterans, giving them an epic and thrilling ride.
To learn more about Paul’s organization check out this awesome video!
Omaha donated to Secret Santa Society and Sacred Heart of Omaha which works to give kids the various necessities and gifts during the holiday season that will help them out for the rest of the year.
Sioux City donated to the organization Partners for Patriots which trains and gives service dogs to veterans who are disabled or struggle with PTSD. A representative and one of the dogs stopped by during the Christmas Party to give a demonstration and talk about their organization.
A representative from local news station KCAU was there to record the gift and it later went out on the news. Below is the feature from that news story and the article that was published with it.
Company Awards
Every year the company gives out awards to employees who stood out throughout the year in some way. These awards are decided on by votes from other employees. It’s always a pleasure to be able to recognize the hard work and personal growth in our staff. After each award is given it is followed by a hearty handshake by the owners to seal that gratitude. The awards that went out have a range of different recognition such as those below.
- Rookie of the Year
- Perseverance Recognition
- Innovation Recognition
- Best Customer Service
- Safety Recognition (Within Service and Non-Service departments)
- Best Mentor
- Top Sales (Within Parts and Trailer Sales)
Christmas Speech
Finishing off the festivities is Shane Keizer, son of Jim Keizer who founded Mid-States Utility and Keizer Refrigeration, who offers up a speech about the year past and the year to come. He thanks his employees for their hard work and he, and his sister Stacy, hand out Christmas cards addressed to each of the employees. The two hold true to their father’s motto that “It’s all about the people.” Of course, that applies to our customers, but it also holds true for the employees as well. A company is only as good as those working for it and maintaining it. The Christmas Parties are in place to show gratitude for each of the employees that work for the company and to celebrate another great year thanks to their hard-work!
Merry Christmas
We hope that our Christmas Parties brought joy to your holiday season. We want to thank everyone for making 2019 such a great year for all of us at Mid-States Utility and Keizer Refrigeration. We hope you all have an enjoyable and safe Christmas holiday and we can’t wait to see what 2020 has in store for us! Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
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