Morning Brew - 🎄 Holiday bashed

Time-saving tools and products we’re really into rn.

• Stop eyeing that messy kitchen counter, entryway, or random corner of the house and pick up some organizational products like this simple key hook cabinet from Yamazaki Home.
• A not-so-gentle reminder to improve your sleep hygiene, as bad sleep habits = big health problems down the road.
• Some pieces of advice can be useful, but we’ve all heard some wisdom that would’ve led to disaster.

What’s top-of-mind at the water cooler.

In pre-pandemic years, the company party was the highlight of the holiday season. With the opportunity to see coworkers get dressed up, the catered food...and of course the open bar, there were plenty of elements that allowed employees to finally decompress and relax after a stressful work year. However, with the arrival of the pandemic, holiday parties were added to the long list of events that were put on hiatus in 2020.

And as a recent article by Eliza Brooke for The Atlantic suggests, holiday parties will look different again this year, thanks to the spread of the Omicron variant. The arrival of this new strain has caused companies to push back their return to office dates, and the extravagant holiday parties of yesteryear are also no longer an option. And that may not be a bad thing, since they frequently serve as a prime setting for bad, drunken behavior.

So how's a company supposed to celebrate their employees at the end of the year if they can’t throw a Gatsby-style bash? Brooke suggests it may be time to ditch the holiday party tradition completely. “In the same way that employers are rethinking the value of offices and in-person work, they may reevaluate what they’re really achieving with their wintertime festivities,” Brooke wrote.

That may not look like a regression to those awkward virtual holiday parties of 2020; it could be hosting smaller “micro-parties” of 10–30 employees, or simply sending holiday-themed packages to employees as thanks for their hard work. (Those employees who do attend traditional company events this holiday season can expect strict vaccination and testing requirements, and smaller turnouts.)

Now I turn it over to you, readers: Are your companies hosting in-person holiday parties this year? If so, are you planning to attend? Hit reply and let me know!

Your punch list for when you punch out.

Read: And just like that...we have some questions about the world Sex and the City made us think we would be living in, in 2021.

Watch & Listen: YouTuber Nicolas Nuvan’s “What Song Are You Listening To?” series has helped fill my autumn playlists...and has made me step up my song selections when walking around NYC.

Eat: Enjoy breakfast with Santa in Battery Park, family-style holiday dining in Orlando, or scrolling through Open Table’s holiday experiences page to find something fun to do in your area.

Burning questions of our time.

Over the last few decades, college degrees have been a must-have for young adults looking to enter the professional workforce, even though they can be expensive and time-consuming. Peter Coy in the New York Times argues that degrees are overrated and unnecessary for every career professional to have. With certifications, classes, and noncollegiate programs (like our very own MB/A), there are more continuing education options out there than ever before. Could you have gotten by without a college degree? Or did you? Let me know what you think in the inbox!