Today we have a guest editorial as Steve is on vacation.

The holiday season is quickly approaching, and this got me thinking about holiday traditions. I know many people are all over the map with how they celebrate the holidays. Some people let their children believe in Santa Claus (Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, etc.), but others do not. Some people give gifts and others don’t. Some families have certain food or meals they always do during this time of year.

When I was young, my father had an unusual Christmas tradition. On Christmas eve there was nothing. No lights, no tree, no presents. My father certainly encouraged my brother and I to believe in Santa Claus. My older brother and I would ask him on Christmas Eve if Santa Claus was coming. He would say, “I sure hope so.” That night, he would put us to bed early and then he would go out and buy a tree. He would put up all the decorations and bring out all the presents. I can tell you when my brother and I got up Christmas morning it was awe inspiring. Even long after I no longer believed in Santa Claus, I still had trouble going to sleep on Christmas eve. I think it is good to have some holiday traditions as long as they are meaningful to you.

We can have traditions at our places of work as well. I am sure a lot of companies take out new employees for lunch on their first day. Perhaps on their anniversary they get another free lunch. There might be a day where everyone brings in their homemade holiday cookies or treats to share with each other. My office has a contest over Halloween. People dress up in costumes and whoever is judged the winner, gets a prize. Sometimes it is a really nice prize like a weekend getaway for two.

I think there are some other work place traditions we should consider over the holiday period. Traditions like going over and testing out disaster recovery plans. The holiday time can be slower for some companies and it seems like a good time to review or test out things that you don’t normally have time to work on. If you have never tested a production backup and restored it, this would be a good time. Now you should be testing your backups and ensuring the restore properly more than once a year, but if you aren’t doing it at all, better to do it now, over the holidays, then never.

Hopefully, you have some holiday traditions that you and your family enjoy. If you don’t perhaps this is the year to create some new traditions. It also might be time to create some new holiday traditions in your work place as well. Share some holiday traditions you do during this season.

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