Two Girls Live Here: Tiny Christmas House in the Office and What it Taught Me

November and December have mostly lost their charm for me. Deep in my spirit, I love the holidays. I love houses shrouded in colorful lights and Christmas decorations.

I love my mother's dressing to the tune of an annual weight increase that takes three times as long to shed as it took me to eat my way through half a pan of bready goodness. These days, I work really ridiculously hard during the holidays. I mostly miss any holiday cheer. I can't remember what happens from year to year except that I work really hard.

That means that work on the property has come to dead stop. There is a line of fence posts standing behind our cabin. It's waiting for our return. I don't even know when that will happen. But things will calm down, and we'll get the rest of that fence built and the rest of Tammy's amazing bar-b-que pit built. Just not now.

Here's the Irony

I want nothing more than to pack up the truck and spend all of my time working on the land. There are so many things to do. Even though work is nowhere near fun this time of year, the company did challenge us to decorate our departments for a fun holiday contest. Since my department worked so hard, and I do love satire, and my team mostly wasn't into it, I made a lunchtime decision to create a Minions scene for us. It lightened the mood.

It wasn't much. I don't expect to win. I just don't want to be the company scrooge team, and as I've already said, I secretly love this time of year.

Irony #1 - Besides me and one other team member, one of our Jewish team members wanted to do this, too. He got his first terrible experience with hanging Christmas lights.

Irony #2 - The SEO and PR team had been mysteriously lax in decorating until this past Wednesday. On my way into the building that morning, I ran into Mark trying to get a arm load of 2x4s and trim pieces up the stairs. This I can appreciate. They were going BIG! They pulled a late-nighter and built this.

That is a 150 sq. foot tiny house right in the middle of the Offers.com office. In my opinion, we needed to call off the contest, and just declare Mark and his team the winners. He built a tiny house kit and assembled the frame right around his department!

Amazing Office Build Gives Me a Chance to Learn

I lurked around this little Christmas cottage all day Thursday. I totally admire the whole concept conceived by the team, but I'm mostly interested in Mark's execution. He pre-cut the structure, pre-drilled his screw holes, and made minimal adjustments once in the office. I'm totally stealing this little house frame idea and building a structure out in Carmine. I'm sure Mark makes it look easier than it is, but I'm going to do it.

What did he do that I've never thought of? One thing. Pre-drill the holes. That means less work for my drill batteries once I'm out on the land where I have no electricity. I know that doesn't sound like much, but I promise. It is.

As for fun. Not only is this little house super spectacular, it's also a reminder of those great tent houses we built as kids. Our secret hideaways, right in the middle of the living room. In this case, I want to be on the SEO team the rest of the year so that I can hide away while I work.