Monday 15 November 2010

Secret Santa Arrives Early

secret santa

The office is gearing up for the Secret Santa draw later this week. I’m actually going to miss the Christmas ‘do’ this year due to travel plans but I thought I’d show willing by participating in the secret-santa-yankee-swap routine. As painful as it might be.

Whilst secret santa exchanges tend to be a universal disappointment throughout offices the world over, heaven help anyone who tries to avoid them by pleading poverty or some other excuse. Worst still, never, ever say you’ll do it and then try and pull out. The organiser has decided to try and get participants to sign a gentlemen’s agreement to prevent a bevy of withdrawals late in the day.  Good luck relying on that one.

And who said the spirit of Christmas was dead?

Anecdotally, it seems that people have started Christmas shopping earlier than ever this year. It’s still not quite hitting my radar yet, but I don’t think I’ll be able to ignore it for too long.  Plus, the infamous Coca Cola ‘Holidays are Coming’  ads have already starting airing so that’s another turn of the screw each and every evening for the next 6 weeks.  Lovely.

5 comments:

  1. I've been nominated to organise the Secret Santa for my department. It should be interesting - I don't think many people are enthusiastic.

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  2. Sounds awful - I'd hate to be tasked with organising it. :-(

    Anyway, the computer-generated draw has taken place overnight and we've all been nominated our giftees.

    My giftee is a chap I don't really know much about - only spoken to him 2 or 3 times. So...USB novelty desk toy or something like this http://bit.ly/cEDlSN

    (very appropriate for this place!!)

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  3. Travis, there is/was a website called Elfster that will do all the heavy lifting for you (matching people) etc.

    In my last office, the tradition was that all males had to buy a "girl" present and all females had to buy a "boy" present. The "girl" presents and "boy" presents were randomly assigned to people of the matching gender on the day of the swap.

    While this led to some amazingly inappropriate gifts on occasion (edible nipple tassles should not feature in the office. ever.), the two choices were (a) buy something boring and stereotypical or (b) buy something silly. You couldn't personalise because you didn't know who you were buying for. Also, it relied on having exactly equal numbers of male and female participants, which never really worked.

    The tradition was upheld by the office's secretaries, despite the complaints of staff, who would have preferred a more traditional secret santa. The head secretary has now retired and it will be interesting to see if there's any secret santa at all this year.

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  4. When working as an ITU nurse I was always the Secret Santa Smellies recipient.
    Every SINGLE time.
    Were people trying to tell me something?!?!?!?

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  5. Beth, speak for yourself - edible nipple tassles are more than welcome in my office! ;-)

    Minxy - I'm sure they just had you down as the feminine type! :p

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