What are the best Secret Santa gifts for work colleagues?
What is Secret Santa? Possibly one of the best Christmas traditions ever that comes with just a smidge of stress.
Secret Santa is a chance for everyone in your office to play Santa and give a gift to one specific person. The names of everybody in the office are dropped into a hat, or mug, or whatever and participants draw those names out one at a time. The name you draw is the person you will be buying a gift for.
The key rule is, of course, budget. Before everybody agrees to participate, a mutually acceptable budget must be agreed. Don’t go too high – Christmas is expensive, and Secret Santa is supposed to be a great way to inject some festive fun into that last day in the office without the heavy price tag of buying gifts for all. The budget also ensures you won’t go home with a selection box after having carefully selected and wrapped a very nice bottle of wine for your recipient.
Research has shown that most people spend around £12 on a Secret Santa gift, but setting the budget anywhere between £5 and £15 is perfectly acceptable.
The key to a successful Secret Santa is to find out a little about the person you are buying for without coming across as a bit of a creepy stalker. This is straightforward in a small office, but in a larger set-up, where people don’t get to know each other so well, can be tricky. Your best idea is to find out who they are friends with, swear them to secrecy and pick their brains.
At Christmas, the shops tend to be full of ‘fun’ and ‘funny’ gifts that easily fall into the £10-£12 range. Don’t go there. In the UK alone, every year, as much as £42 million worth of Christmas gifts are unwanted and end up as landfill. Not to mention the ones sent to charity shops to do the boomerang turnaround for the next several Christmasses.
Great gift ideas for Secret Santa
Alcohol
Check your recipient’s preferences, and look for wine, gin, or something festive you know they’ll like. In the run up to Christmas most of the big supermarkets bring in special offers on fizz and spirits, so you can find a bottle of Champagne or Cream Liqueur that will be sure to please.
Fashion accessories
It’s winter, it’s blooming cold and everybody needs scarves, hats and gloves. Anything from a plain black beanie for your balding boss to a soft pink scarf for Sue in accounts will be gratefully received.
Food
No, not a selection pack! Create your own mini hamper with fancy tea bags, posh biscuits and a mug, for example, or olives, pesto, grissini and pasta, or mince pies, brandy butter, posh crisps and a dip. An Amazon box (we all have those at this time of year) wrapped in festive paper makes a perfect mini hamper, and the contents can be designed to fit with your recipient’s tastes.
Christmas decorations
Yes – it’s true, a beautiful Christmas bauble or two will be a warmly received gift that you know will last and last. Who doesn’t love a fully loaded Christmas tree. You are sure to have some baubles on there that every year, when you unpack the boxes, remind you of a place, time or person and bring a smile to your face. Share the pleasure with a work colleague, why not?! Choose something that keys into your colleague’s likes – do they like animals, for example, or have thing for unicorns? John Lewis, Marks & Spencer, Paperchase, all the main store chains have imaginative selections every year. Or pop to your high street and see what the local independents are selling this year.
We hope that the ideas above give you some inspiration to find the perfect Secret Santa gift to make your recipient glow with seasonal joy.
Eddie – Friday 1st December 2023. (Image used from our JP & Brimelow marketing team).
