Dressing up for holidays at work

Originally published November 1, 2019

Whenever I get the chance to wear something unique to work, I take advantage of that opportunity.  Who wants to wear the same boring old outfits every single day?  Holidays and special occasions are a good way to break up the monotony of the work day, and it also works as a conversation starter.  I am going to discuss my history with dressing up for certain occasions, and how I take advantage of different holidays and special occasions.  

Dressing Down: At my past retail job, we were given the opportunity to dress down on certain occasions.  The first time this happened was when we donated a certain amount of money to our current fundraiser (usually around $10 each) and wore a button saying we are dressing down to support that fundraiser.  It showed customers that we cared about the fundraiser at the time, whether that be breast cancer research, muscular dystrophy, or prostate cancer research.  Unfortunately my place of work stopped doing that; I think because too many people weren't donating and also dressing down, and it was too hard to keep track of.  And also because our store wanted to be a bit more professional, and too many people weren't even abiding by the dress down dress code.  The second opportunity was for employee appreciation week.  Management allowed us to dress down so long as our store was doing well enough on the customer satisfaction surveys, which it always was.  I again took advantage to get out of my work uniform.  At my current job, just like at a lot of places, we have casual Friday's, so I wear my jeans on Friday's and so  far Seahawks gear on every Friday as well (see below).

Seahawks/College football games: Also at my old place of work, they allowed us to wear football jerseys and shirts during football season.  Fridays were "Blue Friday" and we could wear Seahawks gear.  Saturdays were for college games so we could wear the gear of our favorite local team, whether that be the Washington Huskies or Washington State Cougars.  Sundays were usually for Seahawks games and we could again wear Seahawks gear, although this day was sometimes on Monday or Thursday if the Seahawks played on those days.  I always took advantage of wearing my plethora of Seahawks gear, and usually took advantage to wear something Huskies or Cougars related on Saturdays.  At my current place of work, since I work Monday through Friday, I can really only represent on Fridays for the Seahawks and I have every Friday so far.  However, the Seahawks already played a Thursday night game, and I happily supported them then, and they play a Monday night game in just a couple weeks so I will support them at work yet again.

Halloween: Halloween is tomorrow as of me writing this and I am planning on wearing a costume.  I wore a costume every year at work with varying degrees of effort put into them.  A couple times I was Harry Potter.  I have also been a Seahawks player, Spider-Man, Darth Vader, Kylo Ren, Star Lord, and a nerd.  I had to stay work appropriate and I couldn't wear masks.  I am a huge fan of dressing up for Halloween, and I love shopping for costumes.

Christmas: Christmas is my favorite holiday.  I've never had to work Christmas day fortunately, but I have had to work Christmas Eve almost every year.  Around the time leading up to Christmas, I love to wear Christmas colors; wearing red and green every chance I get.  I have both a green and red sweater I can wear around that time.  This year I plan to do the same.  

Patriotic Days: I love my country and I do my best to support it whenever certain patriotic holidays roll around.  On the 4th of July, I've been known to wear patriotic wristbands, undershirts, and red and blue beads.  Those days I would recognize would be Memorial Day, 4th of July/Independence Day, 9-11/Patriot Day, and Veteran's Day.  I have had to work all of those days at my previous job, and always did my best to show my patriotic colors, even though I still had to wear my work uniform.  

St. Patrick's Day: I don't think I have ever not​ worn green for St. Patrick's Day.  As long as I have been dressing myself, I have worn something green on March 17th.  Just like with patriotic holidays, I do my best to show off my colors by wearing wristbands, undershirts, and necklace(s) of that color, in which this case would be green.  Now that I don't have to wear the standard work attire as everyone else, I will definitely try to wear even more green next St. Patrick's Day.

There aren't really any other holidays you can "dress up" for, but as you can tell I always did my best to recognize certain holidays and occasions, and I took advantage of any opportunity to dress differently.