Boss demands remote employees decorate their home office for Christmas, one employee refuses, boss blames them for ruining the holiday spirit: 'It isn't my job to decorate for her’

Author image for Bar Mor Hazut
Bar Mor Hazut • Senior Editor
Dec 19, 2025 10:00 AM EST

When you work from home, you get the privilege of deciding exactly how your work environment will look. You can work from a slick home office, with an aesthetically pleasing desk filled with all the essentials for the job… or you can work from your bed. That's completely up to you.

As long as the job gets done, managers shouldn't really care about your sitting positions throughout your day, or whether your laptop is on a desk or sitting on your lap.

The manager below cares about her employees' work environment, but not for the reasons you think of. She wants proof that her employees decorated their offices for Christmas, and even asked for a picture to use for a game she invented. While that could be a fun holiday activity, it seemed odd that a boss would demand that an employee decorate their private space for a holiday they might not even be celebrating. That is exactly why one employee refused to participate in the game.

The refusal was not welcomed by the boss, so keep scrolling to read what happened next.

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  • AITA for not decorating 🎄

    Today my boss asked us to supply her with a picture of our holiday decorations. For context, we are all remote employees on my team.
    via PineconesThroughTime
  • Christmas Decorating office
    via BokehRD

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • Next week she's going to have a game where she shows the pictures and we have to guess who's decoration it is.
    via PineconesThroughTime
  • I dont decorate, at all. I actually think decorating is kind of a waste of space/time.
    via PineconesThroughTime
  • Not to mention, temporary seasonal decorations end up in a landfill. Permanent seasonal decorations must be rotated and stored.
    via PineconesThroughTime
  • I can't be bothered. I guess in retrospect, I could have pulled a stock image and sent it to her from the internet.
    via PineconesThroughTime
  • Being neurodivergent I told her I don't decorate and left it at that. She basically said I'm ruining the game...
    via PineconesThroughTime
  • it isn't my job to decorate for her I am also not Christian. I find no point in pretending to please others.
    via PineconesThroughTime
  • I'm not going to buy decorations for a picture at work when I'm a remote employee.
    via PineconesThroughTime
  • AITA Add on: It's my bosses first time being a manager. She started about 4 months ago.
    via PineconesThroughTime
  • Last week, she told us there was mandatory overtime. She made us all sit on a 2-hour video together.
    via PineconesThroughTime
  • This was a 13 hour day for me. We found out the next week that the overtime was not, in fact, mandatory, and she was just manipulating us.
    via PineconesThroughTime
  • Office cubicle dacorated for Christmas
    via Thomas Northcut

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • ThatDiscoSongUHate NTA, ND and this is the absolute last year I'm doing it. It's uh wild though because what if you didn't decorate because you had a different religion entirely? Where the hell do you work, the southern states?
    via ThatDiscoSongUHate
  • OP Pinecones Through Time Remotely. But the company is based out of Utah. I do not live in Utah.
    via PineconesThroughTime
  • VideoGeek989 NTA, that's tantamount to discrimination, and you should 100% report the fake overtime plot on its own.
    via VideoGeek989
  • OP Pinecones Through Time 4 of us have turned in the not mandatory OT to HR. Pretty sure she is on thin ice
    via PineconesThroughTime
  • Oddman80 NAH - Everyone is voting not the asshole, but OP hasnt really shown anything that makes the boss an asshole. They came up with a little game, and when OP said they didn't decorate, the boss responded "Aw...your ruining the game" - and it was left like that. Now we don't have any recording of this response it could have been a furious, hair-pulling rant.... But I feel like OP would have mentioned something, anything, if it rose to any sort of actual hostility. It also could have been a s
    via Oddman80
  • Icy_1 So listen. NTA, but not smart. You can be right and stupid at the same time. You could play the game by sending a pic of one stupid candy cane taped to your fridge. Everybody gets a laugh, you come off as a good sport, and everybody will know it's you.
    via Icy_1
  • rst012345 Send her a picture of your lack of decorations, the team can guess who doesn't decorate if she shows your picture. Personally, I wouldn't want to be sharing pictures of my home. They can see whatever is on the screen during video calls and that's it. Nta
    via rst012345
  • OP Pinecones Through Time She has asked me 3x now for a picture. I may photo edit myself as the grinch. This literally has nothing to do with work. Sigh.
    via PineconesThroughTime
  • StarlightGardener NTA. Send in a picture of your not-decorated space. It's the most honest to the prompt. Or go ahead and use a stock image. Or maybe an obviously publicly decorated space. You can still participate in the mandatory fun without compromising your space & values. Or really do ask to just not participate. Personally I think. including a fully average undecorated living room in the mix would be funny.
    via StarlightGardener

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christmas boss work from home workplace-stories remote work employee manager job tales-from-the-workplace decoration workplace company
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