What did you end up doing, OP? My office gets very into holidays and most of us dress up or at least wear festive accessories. This year I am a cat burglar - black and white striped dress, black tights and boots (which I would wear to work anyways), plus black gloves, black toque with cat ears sewn on, and a cat nose and whiskers with liquid eyeliner!

And I am the executive director, so don't worry too much about offending people

Anonymous wrote:

And then don't speak in your meetings.

This made me laugh out loud. Thank you.

I would not be wearing a costume if I had meetings. If no one else is dressing up, go understated. No slutty anything, no face makeup. All-black clothing with a witch hat; a red trench and hat (Carmen Sandiego); Jackie O; Audrey Hepburn; or just wear something vintage and go a little farther with makeup and hair than normal.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work for the Fed Govt. We had a CFC costume event scheduled. My office is usually not too hip on participation but it turned out that three of us showed up wearing mostly grey. Someone said - you guys should be the 3 blind mice. A quick lunch time trip to target yeilded grey socks for tails, headbands for ears made from file folders. We all had sunglasses. We won the costume contest.

The sunglasses sound kind of microaggression-y and not appropriate for a govt workplace. Sounds like it wasn't controversial, though.

Saying "govt" is a microaggression to language and to good government.

OP, if no one else is dressing up, then your doing so is kind of weird. Are you the boss? Are you the fun administrative assistant? If yes to either, you may get a pass, although if you're the boss, you should let your direct reports know that they're welcome to dress up too.

This is OP. There is no party. I just wanted to be festive and fun.

There are a lot of good ideas here. I really like the mime idea and I have all of the necessary costume components. I usually take the notes in meetings anyways, so not talking won't be much of a problem.

OP, change into your costume for the party, and then change out of it. Do not wear your costume to meetings. Get real.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work for the Fed Govt. We had a CFC costume event scheduled. My office is usually not too hip on participation but it turned out that three of us showed up wearing mostly grey. Someone said - you guys should be the 3 blind mice. A quick lunch time trip to target yeilded grey socks for tails, headbands for ears made from file folders. We all had sunglasses. We won the costume contest.

The sunglasses sound kind of microaggression-y and not appropriate for a govt workplace. Sounds like it wasn't controversial, though.

Hah. Seriously? God forbid you smile at work.