My shop has always held some kind of Christmas get-together during the Holiday season. Traditionally, this has been an "Everybody bring something" style of luncheon. We would set up tables in the shop and take a break from the real world for a little while to enjoy a nice Holiday feast together.

My first experience with this came during the 2009 Christmas season, roughly four months after I started at UGA. The Fleet Manager at the time, Bill, provided the main entree, and everyone else supplied a side dish and/or dessert. From what I was told, this is how it had been for a long time. "Providing the entree" usually involved Bill preparing the meat off site and bringing it to the shop at lunchtime via a rather unorthodox method. This was the first time I had ever been served baked chicken out of a trash bag. It was quite good though, even in spite of the incongruous visual.

The arrival of the 2010 Christmas season brought with it a change. Our group decided to gather at a local restaurant. We voted to replace Bill's trash bag chicken with a local Asian buffet. The results were mixed with a slight drift toward "No" for a variety of reasons.

For 2011, we decided to keep the new format, but switch restaurants. The local Ryan's Buffet had a back room that could be sectioned off from the rest of the dining room. Once again, the results were mixed. The food was great. But our group completely overwhelmed the not-quite-as-big-as-we-had-hoped back room.

More changes arrived for 2012. Bill's retirement earlier in the year combined with the two previous restaurant experiences resulted in the return of the time-honored "Everybody bring something" format. This year, we gathered in the conference room in the upstairs offices.

This year's feast was the first for newly hired Fleet Manager, Cris, who took over after longtime manager, Bill, retired.

Everybody brought something and a good time was had by all.

We enjoyed a nice feast together for the 2012 Christmas season. Big changes, however, were in store for 2013 . . .