My office keeps the limit low so there isn't too much you can do besides get them a gift card. I always ask for lottery tickets though in the hopes that one day I'll strike it rich and can leave early. (But come back the next day since you can't win much on a $1 scratcher.)
Depends heavily on office culture. At a video game company? Awesome. Nothing but booze and collectibles. Serious office that doesn't allow booze to be traded? Terrible. Angel table centerpieces and candles.
@JonT This. I worked for a retail bank. We had gift exchanges where 4 of the 20 people show up with the same crappy movie on DVD, and the rest of the people buy some piece of crap decoration that would never find a home in my home
@JonT This is very true. At a previous company I worked, there was a woman who would take a coupon she got in the mail to the customer service desk at the local mall each year and receive her “free gift”. It was always some stupid ornament or something in the under $1 price range. She would use that as her item for the exchange.
@JonT Years ago a colleague, whose personal hygiene was horrific, contributed a bottle of wine to the gift exchange. He proudly announced that he had made the wine with his own two feet. Eeeekk! Thankfully I was not the recipient. That bottle of wine got passed around for years, finally going home with a former employee for hazardous waste disposal.
At our vet clinic we do a gift exchange where you can steal presents from other people. It sounds like it would be awful but it always turns out to be a lot of fun.
@SSteve Same sort of deal... You can unwrap one, not knowing what's in it, or steal one that's already unwrapped. Really kind of interesting to see what each person does.
@SSteve My family has been doing White Elephant since the last of the kids got older. Low dollar limit, and that's only if you can't find something else around the house. De-stresses the whole gifting side of the holidays and takes the whole commercial side out of it. Also, there are sometimes sentimental items that belonged to grandparents now deceased, etc. The person who gets one of those will normally trade/steal your gift so you end up with 'theirs' if it has sentimental value for you etc.
@SSteve We tried Secret Santa at my workplace 25 years ago and it was a disaster so we switched to White Elephant and have lots of fun with it every year. We even have a legacy White Elephany gift, whoever gets it brings it back the next year cleverly packaged so someone thinks it's something nice and gets stuck with it. They throw in a gift card or some lottery tickets to make up the White Elephant amount. Since some of our staff bring their kids to the Christmas luncheon and buy them into the White Elephant exchange, we don't include alcohol. It's both the guy and girl of these:
@smoo99 I'm not Christian, but I enjoy celebrating holidays, no matter whose they are. I'll be just as glad to attend your Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Solstice or Eid al-Fitr celebrations as Christmas ones. More, really, because it would be new and enlightening.
@moondrake I'm delighted to go to Xmas dinner at my friends' every year,, and fill stockings for the part of my family that hangs them. I'm not a Scrooge but hate the assumption that of course everyone celebrates Xmas.
I've only done it once, and it wasn't Secret Santa, it was a Bad Santa white-elephant exchange. Some of the gifts were actually nice; I ended up with a Bailey's Irish Creme gift set and am still using the cordials. I bought a Chia Shrek Donkey, to keep with the Bad Santa spirit. I have to say, it was the idea white elephant gift. I was searching for something appropriate for such, and saw the chias, and thought, "Well, chias are kind of stupid and kitsch, but meh." but then, as I approached, I saw the Shrek Donkey, and it was like the clouds parted, a column of silver light shone upon it, and angels sang. It was the perfect awkwardly bad gift. And at $19.99 (less on sale, more for tax) it was within the spending guidelines. Needless to say, I had fun. Not so sure about the chia recipient, but she assured me that her daughter would love, love, love it. Some people are weird that way.
@PocketBrain Were you the one that got the Chia Newt Gingrich for last years white-elephant gift exchange in my office? Well I ended up with it and I contributed a gambling set in a violin case that may or may not have been in a "bag" from an Amazon subsidiary.
My office does a well intended, but hellish, gift exchange. We buy gifts "for" each other, but then donate them to Toys for Tots. The idea being to learn about your co-workers. Example, "I found out that Joe likes to do word-working so I bought him this 'Bob the Builder' TM workbench". (ha-ha, knee-slap) That's the intent, but most people just buy the first toy they see to get it over with. Which would absolutely be fine, but then we have to go around the room and watch everyone open "his/her" present and have the buyer explain why they picked it specifically: 80% shrug and say "I had to buy something" 15% excruciatingly awkward rationales 5% well-thought-out toys relevant to the personality of the "recipient"
I had fun with the "Secret Satan" exchange at my last small company. It was explicitly a competition for the worst present, with prizes going to both the giver and the victim of the winning gift.
The first year I almost won with a bucket of chocolate pudding disguised as used motor oil (complete with hazardous-waste disposal instructions).
My favorite office Christmas gift exchange was a variation of "Dirty Santa", only instead of awful gifts, everyone brought in a nice gift at around $10 or so. We had a huge group, the game went on for a while, it was a lot of fun!
Nothing at my current nor 2 previous places. Place before that, I talked everyone into stopping the exchange, contributing what we would have spent instead to buying presents for a needy family. Then we did a potluck lunch together. It was much better, no one felt stupid or had to work out what would be a good present.
I might be the only one who enjoys secret santa, lighten up scrooges!
There's no option for "Lots of fun and hell on Earth."
My office keeps the limit low so there isn't too much you can do besides get them a gift card. I always ask for lottery tickets though in the hopes that one day I'll strike it rich and can leave early. (But come back the next day since you can't win much on a $1 scratcher.)
Depends heavily on office culture. At a video game company? Awesome. Nothing but booze and collectibles. Serious office that doesn't allow booze to be traded? Terrible. Angel table centerpieces and candles.
@JonT This. I worked for a retail bank. We had gift exchanges where 4 of the 20 people show up with the same crappy movie on DVD, and the rest of the people buy some piece of crap decoration that would never find a home in my home
@JonT This is very true. At a previous company I worked, there was a woman who would take a coupon she got in the mail to the customer service desk at the local mall each year and receive her “free gift”. It was always some stupid ornament or something in the under $1 price range. She would use that as her item for the exchange.
@JonT Years ago a colleague, whose personal hygiene was horrific, contributed a bottle of wine to the gift exchange. He proudly announced that he had made the wine with his own two feet. Eeeekk! Thankfully I was not the recipient. That bottle of wine got passed around for years, finally going home with a former employee for hazardous waste disposal.
@JonT Yea I work at Nordstrom and everybody knows the people in their respective departments really well, so I kinda wish we did have Secret Santa.
At our vet clinic we do a gift exchange where you can steal presents from other people. It sounds like it would be awful but it always turns out to be a lot of fun.
@SSteve That's part of White Elephant! Everyone knows what a 6 pack looks like and tries to swipe it.
@SSteve Same sort of deal... You can unwrap one, not knowing what's in it, or steal one that's already unwrapped. Really kind of interesting to see what each person does.
@SSteve My family has been doing White Elephant since the last of the kids got older. Low dollar limit, and that's only if you can't find something else around the house. De-stresses the whole gifting side of the holidays and takes the whole commercial side out of it. Also, there are sometimes sentimental items that belonged to grandparents now deceased, etc. The person who gets one of those will normally trade/steal your gift so you end up with 'theirs' if it has sentimental value for you etc.
@SSteve We tried Secret Santa at my workplace 25 years ago and it was a disaster so we switched to White Elephant and have lots of fun with it every year. We even have a legacy White Elephany gift, whoever gets it brings it back the next year cleverly packaged so someone thinks it's something nice and gets stuck with it. They throw in a gift card or some lottery tickets to make up the White Elephant amount. Since some of our staff bring their kids to the Christmas luncheon and buy them into the White Elephant exchange, we don't include alcohol. It's both the guy and girl of these:
Shocking but true. Some of us are Jewish. And no we really don't have a tree or want to get a Xmas themed mug or candle. Some of us are even Muslim.
@smoo99 I'm not Christian, but I enjoy celebrating holidays, no matter whose they are. I'll be just as glad to attend your Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Solstice or Eid al-Fitr celebrations as Christmas ones. More, really, because it would be new and enlightening.
@moondrake I'm delighted to go to Xmas dinner at my friends' every year,, and fill stockings for the part of my family that hangs them. I'm not a Scrooge but hate the assumption that of course everyone celebrates Xmas.
@smoo99 festivus for the rest of us?
Didn't realize Meh was popular amongst Scrooges!
I've only done it once, and it wasn't Secret Santa, it was a Bad Santa white-elephant exchange. Some of the gifts were actually nice; I ended up with a Bailey's Irish Creme gift set and am still using the cordials. I bought a Chia Shrek Donkey, to keep with the Bad Santa spirit. I have to say, it was the idea white elephant gift. I was searching for something appropriate for such, and saw the chias, and thought, "Well, chias are kind of stupid and kitsch, but meh." but then, as I approached, I saw the Shrek Donkey, and it was like the clouds parted, a column of silver light shone upon it, and angels sang. It was the perfect awkwardly bad gift. And at $19.99 (less on sale, more for tax) it was within the spending guidelines.
Needless to say, I had fun. Not so sure about the chia recipient, but she assured me that her daughter would love, love, love it. Some people are weird that way.
@PocketBrain Isn't this what the stuff we buy on meh is for?
@PocketBrain Were you the one that got the Chia Newt Gingrich for last years white-elephant gift exchange in my office? Well I ended up with it and I contributed a gambling set in a violin case that may or may not have been in a "bag" from an Amazon subsidiary.
My office does a well intended, but hellish, gift exchange. We buy gifts "for" each other, but then donate them to Toys for Tots. The idea being to learn about your co-workers. Example, "I found out that Joe likes to do word-working so I bought him this 'Bob the Builder' TM workbench". (ha-ha, knee-slap) That's the intent, but most people just buy the first toy they see to get it over with. Which would absolutely be fine, but then we have to go around the room and watch everyone open "his/her" present and have the buyer explain why they picked it specifically:
80% shrug and say "I had to buy something"
15% excruciatingly awkward rationales
5% well-thought-out toys relevant to the personality of the "recipient"
@DrWorm good lord that sounds awful, I would just buy a toy for the bucket and fall ill during that awkward meeting part.
My office isn't doing one this year, yay!
I had fun with the "Secret Satan" exchange at my last small company. It was explicitly a competition for the worst present, with prizes going to both the giver and the victim of the winning gift.
The first year I almost won with a bucket of chocolate pudding disguised as used motor oil (complete with hazardous-waste disposal instructions).
My favorite office Christmas gift exchange was a variation of "Dirty Santa", only instead of awful gifts, everyone brought in a nice gift at around $10 or so. We had a huge group, the game went on for a while, it was a lot of fun!
@Nonie3234 So, regular gift swap?
Nothing at my current nor 2 previous places. Place before that, I talked everyone into stopping the exchange, contributing what we would have spent instead to buying presents for a needy family. Then we did a potluck lunch together. It was much better, no one felt stupid or had to work out what would be a good present.
I'm commenting on the internet!