Personal Shopper

No, I don’t mean the kind who shops for the executive who can’t be bothered with picking out his wife’s lingerie. Those types of personal shoppers are pros and usually have a client list that would rival The Mayflower Madam.

The personal shopping I’m talking about involves a grocery store. The holidays are so crazy with parties, children’s recitals, concerts, plays, family reunion dinners, blah, blah, blah! A person hardly has time to think, let alone grocery shop. That’s where you come in. Contact the busiest people you know and offer to do their holiday grocery shopping. Services such as this typically charge 10% of the total grocery bill, plus gas charges for commutes over 10 miles. You deliver the groceries to their home and everyone is happy!

Gift-wrapping

Okay, granted, for this one you need to have a little talent in that you have to know how to wrap a gift that doesn’t look like it was done by a first grader with a broken arm. If you possess such talent then the best way to go about this is to put a flyer out (paper or email) in your neighborhood and office advertising your services (be sure to include pick-up and delivery options for an additional charge). Then go to places like Walmart, Rite-Aid, or Target and buy cheap, but cute, wrapping paper and ribbon, and wait for your clientele to contact you. But be prepared for a wave of work the week before Christmas. People who don’t wrap their own gifts tend to wait until the last minute to buy them.

House/Pet Sitting

If you know you’re going to be around the whole month of December, and you have friends, co-workers, or acquaintances who are going out of town for holidays, offer to house sit, pointing out that you’ll be around all month to do things such as water the plants and take in the mail. And if they have pets offer to care for them, as well, for an extra charge.

For people with pets, at-home pet sitting is a valuable service, especially if their pets are older or unaccustomed to being boarded. Find out what the local pet boarding service charges and then charge less. Regardless, you’re looking at anywhere from $20 to $50 per day, depending on the needs of the pets. Not bad, considering you’d just be sitting in your own home, otherwise, earning nothing.

Holiday Card/Package Mailing Service

Believe it or not, many people still send out Christmas cards, even if they don’t have time to do it. That’s where you come in. For those busy folks who got their 100 cards printed at Costco, but still haven’t sent them out, offer to help. Your services can include address label data entry, addressing the envelopes (either by hand or with the labels you print), affixing return address labels and stamps, and then taking the whole mess to the post office. Let your clients pick and choose from a menu of your services. You can charge by the card or by the hour, whichever you seems fair to you.

Offer the same services to people who need to ship gifts, but don’t have time to get to the UPS store or post office. For a fee YOU can be the one to box everything up and wait in line. It’s best to charge by the hour when mailing packages for others, since you’ll probably end up spending more time on this than you would expect.

Craft Fairs

Okay, so you’re not crafty, but hey, you can sit in a booth, right? For those of you who have creative friends and family who make all those holiday decorations that come out at craft fairs every year, offer to help with the booth for a small fee (and don’t agree to take it in trade for gift items, UNLESS they’re selling something you’d buy anyway). You probably won’t make a lot of money helping in a craft fair booth, but again if you’re not doing anything anyway, why not get paid for it?

The idea is to look for low impact ways to earn extra money that don’t necessarily exist at other times of the year. Remember you still need to be able to do your “day job” or continue to look for work, so don’t bite off more than you can chew (unless, of course, it involves a candy cane or plum pudding).

1. Seasonal Work

It’s no surprise that starting the week before Thanksgiving many retail and service industries begin hiring temporary seasonal work, which is what gives the fourth quarter its big employment boost. Chains such as Target and Best Buy, for example, need help everywhere from the stockroom to the sales floor. Plus, catering companies, restaurants, and even florists hire additional wait staff, food prep, and delivery people. And let’s not forget department stores and Salvation Army always need Santas. True, these are not permanent jobs, however, they can lead to long-term work, either with the company that hired you as a temp, or by making contacts through your temp work. (At the very least, it’s extra income over the holidays, and who can argue with that?)

2. Not as Much Competition

Because people have this misconception that companies don’t hire during the holiday season, a lot of would-be new hires give up the job search until after New Year’s Day. Fine. All the better you, who instead of throwing in the towel, redoubles his or her efforts. Don’t get sidetracked by common holiday distractions such as shopping (which you probably can’t afford to do, anyway). Stay focused by devoting a little time everyday (even if it’s just an hour or two) to finding work. If whatever you’ve been doing hasn’t worked, then look for new opportunities that don’t exist any other time of the year, such as…

3. Holiday Parties

Whether you’re employed or not, you’ll undoubtedly be invited to several holiday parties. Instead of being a Grinchy sourpuss who mopes around due to unemployment, put on your best holiday frock and get out there and mingle. Parties are the best way to network and make new business contacts. The environment is non-threatening, everyone’s a little more at ease (especially if they’re drinking, which could NEVER happen in a job interview), and no one has to commit to anything other than having a good time. If possible, convince your employed friends to take you along as a guest to their office holiday parties. The more parties you attend where you hardly know anyone, the better your chances of meeting new business contacts.

4. Use It or Lose It

And finally, if you’re not opposed to consulting work, corporations who use consultants often have to use up their remaining project budgets by the end of the calendar year. If they don’t they run the risk of losing, or getting less, funding for next year. So in an effort to protect their money pots they often hire consultants at the end of the year to burn the last dregs of the project budget. Yes, this is a lot like seasonal temporary work, however, usually you’re in a white-collar environment (like banking, aerospace, or technology development) as opposed to retail sales or wait staff. Plus, you have a much better chance of being hired on as a permanent employee (or as a long-term consultant) if they like you. So don’t pass on the “consultants-only” section of the want ads, jut because you think it can’t sustain you indefinitely. It quit possibly can.

Regardless of how you feel about the holidays, don’t use them as an excuse to quit looking for a job (or a for better job, if you’re currently employed). There are a several job-seeking opportunities that don’t exist any other time of the year. Why let those opportunities go to waste just because you think everyone else is distracted by eggnog and twinkling lights. Because guess what? Turns out they’re not.

Which is why it’s more important than EVER to consider whom you plan to invite over for Thanksgiving dinner. Sometimes we get so close to the people we work with we feel compelled to socialize with them during time off. That’s fine for happy hours and weekly softball games, but Thanksgiving is a time you should spend with people you truly like (weird family members aside, whom you’re stuck with by birth, unfortunately).

So if you’re thinking about inviting a gaggle of co-workers over for Thanksgiving, ask yourself these four questions before you commit to setting a place for them.

1. Is Your Job Political?

And I don’t mean just in terms of liberal vs. conservative (although that can also be a total buzz kill at dinner, IF you happen to host two really outspoken political opposites who can’t keep their opinions to themselves).

Office politics are just as important to consider if you want a tranquil holiday. For example, are you up for a promotion against someone in your department? Have you recently filed a grievance? Do you have trouble getting along with your boss even though other co-workers find him fairly benign? These and other similar situations could make it uncomfortable for your co-workers to share Thanksgiving with you, even though at the office everything appears to be fine. Consider your current political situation at work before you throw open your front door and invite everyone in.

2. Are You a Different Person at Home?

No matter how easygoing you consider yourself to be at work, chances are you’re more yourself at home. That’s not to say you’re trying to hide the real you from everyone at work, but even the smallest nuance could make a difference.

For example, I don’t eat red meat, but I do eat poultry and fish. So one year when I invited a co-worker over for Thanksgiving dinner, she accepted because she’s vegetarian and thought I was too (because she knew I didn’t eat red meat – I didn’t think she’d accept the invitation if she was vegetarian, so I didn’t ask when I invited her). But unfortunately, I’d put chicken broth in EVERYTHING, so she left early to go home and eat.

Same thing can happen with alcohol. If you like to imbibe in spirits, but your co-workers are more of the non-drinking types (or vice versa), then you may want to rethink your office guest list when it comes to your holiday parties.

3. Is “Come One, Come All” the General Rule?

In other words, if you invited one or two people from work, will you have to invite the whole crew? This can be awkward in small businesses or satellite sales offices where there are only a few employees. Even though people say it doesn’t matter, sometimes it really does, especially around the holidays. If you don’t mind feeding a large cast of co-workers, then the more the merrier. If, however, you don’t want to invite everyone from your office, but you’re worried they might feel left out, then think about how you’re going to handle this before you invite anyone. You don’t want to have to endure any weirdness when you get back to work.

4. Will Your Co-workers Like Your Family?

This is the million-dollar question. Do you really want to expose the people you work with to your crazy relatives? That’s not to say you’re ashamed of them, but as Dave Barry once said “Thanksgiving is that very special holiday when we take a break from our hectic everyday lives to spend quality time with our loved ones, rediscovering all the reasons why we don’t actually live with them.” So, for example, if you have an 80-year-old uncle who likes to get drunk and pass out by 4:00 p.m. or a scary-looking punk sister who dresses like a witch and has more ink on her body than road map, you might ask yourself, “How hard to I really want to work on Thanksgiving to make this eclectic group blend?”

Really, it all comes down to this: You deserve to have a peaceful, happy Thanksgiving just as much as the next person. And if you can make that happen AND include some of your co-workers, great! If not, don’t worry. You can always make up for it at your New Year’s Eve party, where everyone is expected to get wild and act like goons.