Our offices celebrated the holidays with lots of fun exchanges, games, Santa visits, and more!
Holiday Events
Decorations
Office and Cookie Decorating
In office buildings across the country, cubes and offices are decked out each year with lights, snowmen, gingerbread houses, and mini Christmas trees. We're no stranger to these festive light shows! Each year in our Maple Grove, MN, office, we hold a decorating contest to see who can deck their halls the best and earn a prize. This year's winner was Scott Kronholm with joint-team of Teri Maslow (L) and Emmy Baskerville (R) taking second place. Thanks to everyone's decorations, the office is more jolly than ever.
The last decorating event was a stress-free cookie decorating event over lunch. Participants were given the frosting, sprinkles, and cookies necessary to decorate their cookies then everyone voted on which cookie decorations they liked best. Nathaniel Baumler won the cookie decorating contest and won a baking mitt and wooden spoon!
Beer Exchanges
Maple Grove Cheer Pong and Fargo Beer Exchange
Our Maple Grove staff put a spin on our typical beer exchange with a fun "Cheer Pong" game. For each bell you got in a cup, participants earned a chance to select a beer for their 6-pack to bring home.
The Fargo team played a classic game of beer exchange.
Holiday Meals
Sioux Falls Dinner
Employees and spouses in HEI's Sioux Falls office (along with Cody Eilertson from Fargo and his wife) enjoyed an evening of holiday fun. Josh Johnson rolled out the holiday cheer with his festive Christmas jacket. A good time was had by all!
Maple Grove Lunch
Maple Grove enjoyed an italian holiday feast from Buca di Beppo. We all overate, but we don't regret it!
Games
Fargo Saran Wrap Surprise and Bingo
In our Fargo office, staff played the highly suspenseful saran wrap game to reveal surprises wrapped up in a sticky ball. The saran wrap ball was passed around and gradually unwrapped to reveal 25 different prizes. Staff also enjoyed Christmas Bingo over a lunch hour.
Thief River Falls Cornhole
The Thief River Falls team got creative with setting up a cornhole tournament in the narrow walkway of their office. A good eye for aim and accuracey were required to win this game!
Maple Grove Games
This year, the Maple Grove party planning committee created five timed games for teams to complete as quickly as possible. Whichever team completed all the games in the shortest amount of time won.
A Little Help from the Elves - Scavenger Hunt: To throw a fun twist in the activities, a scavenger hunt was set up around the office. The teams were given a poem to decode and find small items. For each item they collected, time was removed from their final score. But, if the incorrect item was collected, time was added to their final time.
The Winners: The winners of the Holiday Fun-Stravaganza were (L-R above) Ben Jore, Joe Jeurissen, Chris Papenfuss, and Drew Kessler.
Getting to Know Co-Workers
Fargo Santa Palooza
Every year Santa Claus stops by the Fargo office to meet some nice...and sometimes naughty...children and their families! This year the kiddos got to write letters to Santa, play some Christmas games, and eat good food!
Maple Grove Wreath
The festive decorations continued onto a wreath hung above a new fireplace. Employees donated ornaments that represented their personalities to hang on the wreath. Participants then guessed who had which ornament. The winner of the guessing game was Suzy Lindberg with 16/25 answered correctly.
Employees also hung stockings with fun facts about themselves so staff could get to know each other better.
Doing Good
On Monday December 16, our Maple Grove team delivered donations to the Division of Indian Work – a non-profit aimed at empowering urban American Indians through culturally-based education, counseling, advocacy, and leadership development. HEI donated a car full of home goods such as diapers, soap, feminine products, teen gifts, and more.
Spenser Wipperfurth drove the donations dressed in a snowman poncho as the day was also dress festive day! Spenser wasn't the only one dressed to impress. While others wore the traditional ugly Christmas sweaters, Thomas Moore wore possibly the most elvish costume HEI has seen to date.
