In case you haven't noticed yet, BrainStorm is big on traditions. I mean, really big—and our biggest tradition of all is the Annual Kickoff week in December! Check out some of the highlights below.

On-site Holiday Week

All of BrainStorm's full-time employees traveled to American Fork, Utah, during the second week of December to participate in the company's year-in-review meetings. More importantly—they got to experience our much-loved holiday celebrations! Here are a few things we did that week.

The Wacky White Elephant Gift Exchange

This activity works mostly like you'd imagine: everyone brings a gift that costs under $15, and everyone leaves with one of those gifts. The BrainStorm tradition adds a third element: we play by something called 'survivor rules.' Gifts can be stolen or swapped, and at any time there could be an impromptu 'musical chairs' moment—where everyone is required to get up, leave their presents behind, and find a different chair. The game gets very competitive very fast, and no gift is safe. Things can become cutthroat when limited-edition beanie babies and Elvis Presley tree ornaments are at stake.

"Amazing Grace" Activity

Every year as part of the celebration, BrainStorm organizes a large company-wide activity that takes up about half the workday. This year, we participated in a service-oriented scavenger hunt that combined three things we're passionate about: giving back through service, competition, and reality TV! (Okay, maybe I’m the only one who's passionate about that last one.) The contest was modeled after the TV game show The Amazing Race. We divided up in to teams and spent the day crisscrossing the city, competing to see which team could contribute the most service to the community. It was an awesome way to complete the week.

At BrainStorm, we play as hard as we work. Do you think that's something you could get used to? Check out our careers page to see if you could be the next PropellerHead.