Staff at an Edinburgh-based cybersecurity company will once again contend with a form of festive torture in the lead up to Christmas.

The Consider IT office, located in Leith, has been kitted out with dozens of interactive Christmas decorations, which are controlled by members of the public.

Relentless flashing lights and an endless barrage of looping jingles now reverberate through the office while anonymous people take control of the decorations every 60 seconds.

The annual festive event has become somewhat of a legend in the Edinburgh IT & digital technology scene. Originally, it was only meant to be a joke between Consider IT and clients, says Stuart Gilbertson, founder and managing director at the firm.

“It started off a few years ago as a bit of fun between us and our clients, but moving it online publicly has really brought it to another level,” he explained.

“While a lot of the staff love the idea, the office grinches are really starting to lose their minds – there’s only so many times you can listen to Jingle Bells on a loop before earplugs need to come out. It’s fair to say there’s now a love-hate relationship with the festivities this year.”

A range of interactive Christmas decorations are scattered around the office space, including inflatable Christmas trees, an igloo with penguins, a giant inflatable snowman and an array of flashing neon disco lights.

Members of the public who wish to log-in and control the decorations can do so by visiting a special Consider IT webpage. From there, they can log-in via Facebook and join a queue for their chance to inflict festive-themed madness.

On average each day, the 12-strong team will endure at least 100 repetitions of Jingle Bells, the firm said. With around 30,000 web visitors expected to log onto the web page to control the decorations, there will be little respite for the team until the 6th January.

Gilbertson admitted that while it can be distracting, it offers the team a challenge to maintain high standards of service and response times for clients.

“It’s a great, if a bit mad, way to show our clients we can really work anywhere, under any circumstances and still deliver great work – especially when it’s our clients who are often at the other end controlling the action,” he said.

Earlier this year, the firm opened its high-tech disaster recovery suite. The office space enables clients to be back up and running within hours of a disaster, such as security breach losses or even fires and floods.