Twinkle, Twinkle Times 144,000

I expected it to be a busy Friday the 13th yesterday so I went to an earlier morning mass and headed for the office after.  Instead of my usual (pass through the Priceline chemist shop to get a free spritz of perfume for the day) route, I decided to go through the (let's do some sightseeing and window shopping) Queen Victoria Building route instead.  

I picked up a QVB catalog just for the heck of it and browsed it on my way to work. Naturally the catalog would have something about the Swarovski Christmas Tree that was on display.  The  huge Christmas tree which fascinated me when I first saw it in 2010 stands tall in the middle of the building, you'd be blind if you missed it.  

As I browsed the catalog, the number 144,000 stuck in my head. The tree boasted 144,000 Swarovski crystal ornaments and 60,000 twinkling lights.  Wow!  (But really the 144,000 in my mind was something like 12 squared times 1,000.  Don't ask me why but that was my thought process when I saw the number. )

Fast forward to lunchtime.  For the first time since I started work, the Group was going to have a Christmas lunch sponsored by the company.  (Nice!)  We were told this was a "sit down" lunch and we were to have the meal in the room.  In other words, we could not just get food and return to our work stations to eat.   In fact, we were advised that there would be games and prizes involved during this gathering.   Teams were assigned based on the table where one was seated.   

There was a Christmas trivia with six questions : (1) In the song "Twelve Days of Christmas", what did my true love give to me on the 3rd day of Christmas? (2) What colour is the Grinch? (3)  What are you riding while you are "dashing through the snow"? (4) Who wrote the Christmas Carol?  (5) How many ghosts visited Ebenezer Scrooge?  (6)  Who was the last ghost that visited Ebenezer Scrooge.  

(I have a feeling we would have done better at this game when we were in grade school or high school.  None of the teams got all the answers correctly.)

The second game was a guessing game.  How many Swarovski crystals are there in the QVB Christmas tree?  Clue : It is between 100,000 and 150, 000.   

(Guess whose team won that game?)  

The last game was charades where they words to be guessed were Christmas-related. There were easy ones like snowman, Christmas tree, and star. There were harder ones like wreath, milk, etc. Then there were the tough ones which people did not get like biscuits, joy, left-overs.   There were some words which my brain did not immediately comprehend as being related to Christmas such as SUMMER and SAND.

(Note to self : Wake up!  You live in Australia now.  Christmas is still in December but December is during the summertime therefore think SAND and not snow!)

Our table tied with another table for the charades game.  So there was a dance-off to break the tie.  Since we had won the previous game, the rest of the team voted for the other guy.

There was a lucky number door prize draw and a "guess how many lollies in this jar" game ... then it was back to work.

Ho!  Ho!  Ho!  Merry Christmas!

This is the tree that won our team some chocolates.