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Dear Miriam,
Some of the more junior employees in my workplace (who report to me) went on a “holiday decorating spree” yesterday. They decorated a common space immediately outside of my private office with Santas, Christmas trees, and other Christmas decorations. They also taped a reindeer to my office door (and the doors of other offices) without asking me. I want to take the reindeer down, but also don’t want to offend them or make them feel uncomfortable/bad – especially because I’m their supervisor.
Relatedly, our office is doing an office decorating contest. In part because I’m miffed that I have to spend the next three weeks looking at Christmas decorations outside my office, I’m thinking of going all out for Hanukkah in my office (which I’ve never done before). Do I hand the reindeer back to the junior employees and say thanks, but it’s going to conflict with my Hanukkah-themed decorations that will be going up shortly? Can you suggest other options or ideas for how to balance being a kind supervisor, while making my I-don’t-want-Christmas-decorations-in-my-space position known?
Signed,
Your Supervisor’s a Grinch
Dear Supervisor,
I’d like you to start by imagining that this is about anything besides Christmas. What if your supervisees hung up decorations for people’s birthdays, or Halloween, or a sports team? Maybe you’d let them keep it up for a little while and then ask them to take it down. Maybe you’d tell them that people needed to opt in to having the decorations on their offices. Maybe you’d just look the other way and not say anything. Which response would best represent you as a supervisor? Which response would be most likely to foster the kind of environment you value at work and that you want your coworkers on all levels of the organization to experience at work?
Of course it feels different when it comes to Christmas, and you are absolutely entitled to feel however you feel as a Jew in the workplace in December 2024. However, as the supervisor, you are also responsible for tone-setting, and relationship-building, and generally not being a Grinch no matter how much you want to be one.
I would actually not say anything to the supervisees about the decorations. What’s done is done for this year, and to ask them to take them down might create an uncomfortable environment for the next three weeks, and I’m just not sure it’s worth it. However, if anyone else in the office, especially any other supervisee, complains to you about feeling left out or uncomfortable about the decorations in any way, then you have a different obligation to make adjustments to the decor as soon as possible.
If it’s just you, though, take a minute now to mark your calendar for November 1, 2025, and set a meeting with them then. Next year, you can say, “I love your motivation from last year to make the office look festive. This year, I’m hoping we can do something more inclusive. Instead of Christmas decorations, could you do a winter theme or maybe a New Year’s theme?” I would also add something potentially educational like, “Even things like reindeer and trees can feel exclusionary to people who don’t celebrate Christmas, so let’s opt for snowflakes and twinkly lights.”
As for the contest, given your big feelings, go ahead and go big! If you want an inflatable dreidel, get an inflatable dreidel. If you want to hang pictures of latkes from your ceiling, get out that step ladder. But also, Hanukkah decorations aren’t usually that great, and building them up only reinforces the idea that adding a menorah to the Christmas tree display counteracts Christian dominance in a meaningful way, or that Hanukkah is a Jewish equivalent to Christmas which, of course, it’s not. Maybe you want to model going all out on generic winter decorations in your office. Penguins, snowmen, and hot chocolate have a lot of cuteness potential!
Finally, as for that reindeer on the door, leave it where it is. But, as you decorate, add a speech bubble coming out of the reindeer’s mouth that says, “Happy Hanukkah.” This will show some humor, it will avoid a confrontation with your supervisees, and it will let you be a good sport while still getting your point across.
Be well,
Miriam
