Holiday displays bring retirees, staffers cheer

Guam - There's no doubt that the Christmas spirit can be a great motivator. Silver bells and candy canes and angels dangling from the ceiling - turning a corner takes you from a Charlie Brown Christmas into a winter wonderland in the unrecognizable halls of the GovGuam Retirement Fund building in Maite.

Retirees like Anita Blas said they can't help but smile from the contagious holiday cheer, telling KUAM News, "It's inspiring. I'm fascinated. I think this department did a great job." Retirement Fund Director Paula Blas says she gave her employees the green light to decorate so long as the displays showcased the theme of experiencing Christmas through the eyes of a child.

She explained, "Each team had two weeks to come up with a design and execute, and they would be judged on creativity, originality best reflection of them."

Creative they were - from going green to what Christmas is like on the outer islands or in the Philippines, employees like Esther Flores used their own materials and decorations to adorn the walls and deck the halls. "There's a lot of blood sweat and tears that goes into this. We planned this and decided we wanted to be different and original and the presentation - we came up with this," she said.

Flores added, "The contest basically was to boost morale towards the end of the year and to be able to start the morale with a high."

On Christmas Eve, Blas says management will decide on the winning team for the contest and who will be awarded a cash prize, but there are prizes for all and runners-up get a pizza party. The holidays are the special time of year where everyone is expected to eat drink and of course - be merry.

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