Treasured traditions at Cook locations

While the holiday season may be looking a little different this year, there are so many traditions that are still treasured, even if some adjustments need to be made. In light of the numerous holiday celebrations, many Cook companies around the world have shared some of their special decorations and unique customs in hopes of spreading a little holiday joy and feelings of togetherness this winter season. You can check out some of the new, festive approaches from around the Cook world below!

Cook Canada puts the fun in fundraising

One of Cook Canada’s favorite traditions is the fundraising efforts and collecting for families in need that they help support throughout the holiday season each year. For 2020, they are collecting hats, mittens, and scarves to donate to a local organization that helps coordinate and care for local families in need. Along with their donations and an annual raffle, the employees at Cook Canada send Christmas cards to the Canadian Armed Forces to show them their support and to offer holiday cheer. This year, in lieu of in-office celebrations, Cook Canada is excitedly hosting a virtual ugly sweater, hat, and socks contest for employees to show off their cozy clothes and hilarious holiday outfits.

Trimming the tree at Cook Aviation

For 15 years, Teresa Hammel, the receptionist at Cook Aviation, has proudly decorated the company Christmas tree. After Thanksgiving, she unboxes the ornaments, sets up the evergreen, and merrily trims the tree to help jumpstart the company’s holiday spirit. Teresa and the other folks at Cook Aviation shared that the end of the year is a meaningful time for them, when they get to celebrate by enjoying festive decorations and spending time with their friends and families.

Crafty competitions at Cook MyoSite

This year, as an additional health and safety measure, Cook MyoSite will not be participating in their usual holiday plans. However, their yuletide cheer remains. During a normal year at Cook MyoSite, individuals and departments come together to make customized ornaments to hang on the tree in their cafeteria. While the competition can get heated sometimes, the beloved tradition is a great way for different groups to show off their craft skills and a way to hang out and catch up with your team during the hustle and bustle of the holiday season. Not to mention, it is a great way to learn about and celebrate different wintertime holidays and customs.

Good deeds and good fun at Cook Research Incorporated

To start off their season of holiday fun, folks at Cook Research Incorporated (CRI) organized a virtual silent auction of employee-made items to raise money for the Food Finders Food Bank. Together, they raised over $1,000 for the cause’s Giving Tuesday donation event. They also rallied around the Adopt-A-Vet program and sponsored 30 veterans living in their local veterans home by making donations and purchasing gifts to help fulfill wishes from their wish lists. CRI employees also teamed up with their colleagues from the other Cook entities located in West Lafayette, Indiana, Cook Biotech, MED Institute, and Cook Advanced Technology, to collect toys for the Salvation Army’s Angel Tree Program. In total, enough gifts were donated to provide 80 local children with presents this holiday season.

AMER Support Center’s traditional twinkly lights

For the past two years, the Global Supply Chain employees and their families have gathered at the AMER Support Center to watch the 35-foot evergreen in front of the building be lit up for the holiday season. This year, while they missed the hot cocoa, cookies, and caroling of previous seasons, they were able to share the celebration with teammates around the world through a special recording. To catch a glimpse of their twinkling light tradition from years past and the present, watch the video below!

New decorations to deck the halls at Cook China

Now in their newly renovated Shanghai office, the employees at Cook China bought some new decorations for the holiday season, and they have worked to create a Christmaslike world in different parts of the office. They are also looking forward to their tradition of celebrating the upcoming Chinese New Year in February of 2021!

Spreading holiday cheer at Cook Denmark

To help spread holiday cheer, Cook Denmark changed up a few of their traditions this year. For the first time, they decided to decorate their outdoor trees with lights in hopes of spreading some joy to their employees and to the community as well. Another recent tradition (which they adopted last year) is adorning the top of their building with a fully trimmed tree as a fun way to decorate for the holiday season.

Throughout December, they provide their employees with a couple of traditional Danish Christmas lunches in the cafeteria or in the lunch boxes. These lunches include traditional Christmas foods popular in Denmark. A fun spin on these lunches includes a very popular Danish holiday tradition, serving rice pudding with a special chance of winning a surprise, often a chocolatey treat, if your dish has a hidden almond inside.

“A lot of families do this at home on Christmas Eve as well,” explained Kamilla Fredborg Holm, a Strategic & Executive Communication manager at Cook Denmark.

“In Denmark, we celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve. We typically gather with our families, eat a nice dinner, sing and dance around the tree, and then we open up all of the presents before stuffing ourselves with homemade chocolate and biscuits. After opening all our gifts on the 24th, the next day, we enjoy eating until we practically pop!” Kamilla continued.

Most years, they also celebrate the holiday season in mid-December with traditional Danish Christmas pancake puffs and a non-alcoholic punch, which they call aebleskiver and glogg. Then, at the end of the month, the employees toast with special-edition, alcohol-free champagne and enjoy traditional marzipan cakes. With the changes this year, Cook Denmark is also working on a special surprise as a token of appreciation for their employees and for everything that they’ve worked for together this year. With that, and a very big thank you to Pernille Nielsen and Christian Bach for all of their hard work that went into creating, illustrating, and animating this video, please enjoy the special, surprise video below!

A warm holiday feel at the Grant Street Inn

At CFC Properties’ Grant Street Inn, located in Bloomington, one of their favorite holiday traditions is decorating their beautiful building with poinsettias, hanging wreaths and garland around the porch, and decorating the dining room and lobby with little holiday-themed knick-knacks. Most years, they also put up a tree and decorate it with ornaments and other fun things to help guests and visitors enjoy the warm holiday feel at the Grant Street Inn.

Celebrating longevity and prosperity at Cook Medical Japan

Each year, Cook Japan decorates their lobby with a Christmas tree, along with wreaths, a Santa figure, and a few other special ornaments as well. They place a kagami mochi, which is a sizable, circular rice cake, out as an offering. Then, for Kagami biraki, they open these New Year’s rice cakes, generally on January 11th, and they add them to oshiruko, a sweet aduki bean soup. This tradition of eating the kagami mochi is to live happily for another year. In Japan, it also popular to decorate the front door of shops, company buildings, and houses with a pair of kadomatsu during the New Year holidays. In the lobby at Cook Medical Japan, a pair of kadomatsu are placed as a decoration, which consists of bamboo and pine branches and symbolizes longevity and prosperity.

Making spirits bright at Cook Ireland

At Cook Ireland, they celebrate each year with a Christmas jumper day and a delicious, free Christmas dinner of turkey and ham in the staff restaurant. During previous seasons, Cook Ireland’s Sports and Social club has organized a holiday celebration for employees and their children, and most years they have about 500 adults and 500 children come through their doors. In 2020, instead of this usual holiday celebration, they are working on a special virtual Santa surprise, and they are all pretty excited to see what it will be!

This year, they kicked off their holiday season by inviting employees to share how they were starting the Christmas celebrations in a “Christmas Comes Early” photo competition. The winners were Patricia Enright (who, together with her daughters Ellie and Olivia and their grandparents, enjoyed a Santa visit via a Zoom call from the man in red), Nadine Tammer (who has been busy getting ready for Christmas with her colleagues, baking Christmas cookies, decorating, making cards, and enjoying some homemade mulled wine), and Fiona Devevey (who shared a photo of her Cockapoo, Alfie, looking very smug having already sorted his Christmas outfit).

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