The Simpson Strong-Tie 12 Days of Ornaments

At the Simpson Strong-Tie branch in McKinney, Texas, Inside Sales Supervisor Rebecca Heckel shares a longstanding tradition of an Ornament Decorating contest that takes place every year. This year was no exception.

We’re not sure how far back the McKinney Branch Ornament Decorating contest goes — definitely as far back as 2008. We have pictures from ’08 that document the ingenuity and creativity of our Simpson Strong-Tie employees. The year 2021 upheld the tradition.

The parts were provided by our branch and a table was set up out back for anyone interested in participating in this contest. Parts included the light tie strap, light mudsill anchor in ZMAX®, ridge rafter connector, mudsill anchor, framing angle, angle, medium embedded truss anchor, hurricane tie, panel sheathing clip, post cap, decorative star and decorative washer.

We emailed pictures of the ornaments to our colleagues in the McKinney office and people voted for their favorite ornament.

The top three vote-getters were the following:

First Prize: Sheree Wood’s “Lumiere” — The Nutcracker

Second Prize: Michael Minton’s “Eddie” — The Skier

Third Prize: Cara Fraser’s “Rudolph” — The Red-Nosed Caribou (er, Reindeer)

We had a total of eleven entries for the contest. Three of the participants made two ornaments — each completely different from the other. Our employees had so much fun creating these ornaments that they just wanted to keep going! Take a look at the rest of these wonderful creations (in no particular order).