Christmas Party.

Today in my teenage angst, I hosted my first staff Christmas party. Sixteen people came. It lasted two and a half hours. I got three hugs; from fairly significant people I might add.

The library is a weird place. It's part of a union, which automatically ensures seniority battles. There's really not that much to do, so if personalities clash, it's in a concentrated setting. Plus, at our library, at least, there's a lot of history. People base a lot on a lot that's in the past. That might annoy the badingas out of me but I've been there less than a year, so I don't really know what I'm talking about. Either way, there's a lot of animosity.

 I came to understand, through a number of conversations leading up to the party, that a lot was riding on its success.  The staff of our public library hadn't spent time together outside of the obligatory retirement party for several years. Closing in on a decade. So this party was either going to bring a much needed bond to our staff, or things were going to stay the same forever. So when I started planning the party, it was met with understandable resistance. I didn't give up. It's not my personality. I planned and took polls on the desired make-up of the party and had so many conversations about it I hated the party before it even came.

So it came and it was fabulous. I sat there and stared at everybody, so nervously wanting everybody to be overtly having a good time. I quickly realized that wasn't going to do any good. So I started talking to the only spouse that came. That solved the problem. The pizza game, we ate, we played games, we wrapped things up. The head librarian hugged me. Everyone was psyched we had done it. Well they weren't psyched as much as pleased.

I'm so grateful. I'm so relieved. My deepest hope and prayer for the library is that they would love each other and be legitimately interested in each other's well being. I really think this might have played a part.