Fuck it. Let’s have a ‘Shit Secret Santa’ thread.

[Retiremental]

Mine hit a new low spot this year with Bayliss and fucking Harding

Our manager gave me bubble bath, we only have a shower so it was put on top of the bathroom cabinet. I was cleaning the bathroom one day and decided to wash it because it looked dusty. It slipped through my hand and it went through the wash hand basin leaving a huge hole. We got enough insurance money to put in a lovely new bathroom.

Over 20 years ago I got half a coconut shell fashioned as a trinket box as a secret Santa.

It remains the most ugly gift I've ever been given.

I once got a nodding South Park figure for the rear parcel shelf of a car. I don't watch South Park and didn't have a car at the time.

My friend got worse though - her DH had lost his job the month before, so they'd decided to just buy presents for their children and nothing for each other. She'd been telling everyone how much she was looking forward to Secret Santa as this would be the only present she'd get. The budget was £15, and some arsehole laminited a £10 and a £5 notes and gave it to her. She was so upset and disappointed.

My shitest was a half size tin of baked beans and sausages and a small green rimmel eyeshadow

My best was perfume from next- the one I usually wear for work actually!

@ithinkyouareveryrude

A packet of KP honey roast peanuts as a joke after I had gone into anaphylactic shock on the office floor a month previously from a mistaken granola bar.

That is genuinely shocking. Should have been an HR matter. Hope it was.

So nasty, but could she get the money replaced by a bank, @CarrieMoonbeams?

Someone I worked with got edible underwear. She cried! And secret Santa got banned in the office

My son got given a fruit.

Well this is a mix of genuinely weird or harassing gifts, and people with expectations that are far too high.

I've had some odd secret Santa gifts but didn't expect a Proper Present, so just said thank you and forgot about it. Eg monogrammed hankies are not my style (or century) but someone took the time to find something personalised so I took it in the spirit that it was given. I would dream of taking it as a personal sleight that someone didn't care enough about me to get something that I wanted. Because, well, I'm not five years old and have empathy.

Some OPs think it is Scrooge-like to regift or spend under the limit, but perhaps you don't know the financial pressure other people are under. As a work acquaintance you aren't going to be someone's first priority.

When my DC were small we had a very tight Christmas as I had just returned from maternity leave and every penny was accounted for. We had tonnes of nieces, nephews, godchildren, etc to buy for too and I remember wanting feeling sick with anxiety when I got pressured into doing a work SS. I knew I wouldn't give anything decent (had to be a regift or nothing) and probably wouldn't get anything great either (it was a set of wind-up racing grannies that year).
I just remember thinking 'what a waste' a waste of my time and my emotions; feeling guilty for having to give something shite and angry for being put under social pressure. A waste of effort for the organiser when no one was that into it. And a waste of a present for whoever bought for me. They'd even spent over the limit on plastic tat that went straight to a charity shop.

Thank goodness for lockdown and the death of enforced office Christmas fun this year. I'm especially grateful not to be organising the office meal and the handwringing and haggling over splitting the bill at the end. There were literal tears over that last year!

Worse one I thought was for the SS organiser who got just plastic tat: an inflatable c*ck with rings to throw on it, and a crown or something with no other purpose (not like a mug) with a message along the lines: I organised SS and this is what I got.

My partner is a bit of a bah humbug, yet he's the one organising SS at his work. He refuses to take part in because for various reasons he would need to tell someone 'you're my SS'.
Last year they joined to buy me him a bottle of gin. It's a small team and they buy each other very thoughtful present.

A blank card with a packet of seeds. Never have I been so disappointed.

@SparklingLime

So nasty, but could she get the money replaced by a bank, *@CarrieMoonbeams*?

Ooh I don't know, Sparkling, I must ask her when I speak to her next time. I hope so anyway, it was such a smart-arse thing to do.

Last year the people invited to my home (not relatives) wanted to do a secret santa.
On the day they decided to change to 'Bad Santa' where you either take an unwrapped gift or 'steal' someone else's (which I thought was an awful idea).

Well with 4 kids under 12, that was bound to be a disaster. All the kids got inappropriate stuff (solar garden lights type).
The one teen picked up her present and said 'who wants this shit'. And it all went downhill from there.

Someone forgot to get a gift for DH, so he was given a plate of cakes.

We are not doing Christmas with these people this year- their manners were appalling.

A plaster garden gnome that was painted or something like the ones you always see around but not only was this painted and face and hands looked absolutely life like, so was the gnomes uncircumcised anatomy correct! uncircumcised penis like whoever crafted this monstrous thing must have either made a cast of their own or someone else’s, it’s trousers were pulled down. The tags said “naughty gnome flasher for your garden”

To say I was horrified is an understatement but I told my mum and brother’s about this. We have a large extended family in America who all live within a 40 minute drive or closer to each other. It’s now been in the family about 20 years, no one knows who has it until Christmas Day or sometimes eve when the recipient notices a gnome with a huge penis surrounded by solar Christmas light on their front garden facing the street so all the neighbours are aghast and so too passers by, Lots of people will stop to take pics.

After it’s found the prankster reveal themselves.

Added beneficial is the gnome is at least 3.5 feet tall

I still ponder why my gentleman secret Santa thought I needed that because it was clearly over the £10 limit. My most sickening thought is he made it himself for me!

This year I received a gift card for a local photographer. The problem was the gift card was for £20 and the photographers packages start at £50 and extra if you actually want any of the photos .....
I’m on maternity leave. Extra £’s do not appear for shit like that, she knows I’m frugal.

It was blatant who had sent it, she lives with the photographer.... thoughtless and probably free for her.

I'd have been quite happy with co op smoked salmon

So you were horrified @gothamgirl1970, but now join in with making sure random people, including children, have no choice but to see this thing?

Not this year but scratch cards. £10 worth. Obviously no thought what so ever had gone into it. Won £1 on one and binned it anyway as I couldn't be bothered to go cash it. I'd spent ages find something really personal for mine, it was obvious my 'santa' had literally gone, fuck it and bought something from the shop that morning. I'd worked there 3 years ffs!

@GYNisaliarWTF

This year I received a gift card for a local photographer. The problem was the gift card was for £20 and the photographers packages start at £50 and extra if you actually want any of the photos ..... I’m on maternity leave. Extra £’s do not appear for shit like that, she knows I’m frugal.

It was blatant who had sent it, she lives with the photographer.... thoughtless and probably free for her.

That's not a gift, that's someone trying to drum up business for their partner. I would not use it.

Keep it and give it back to her, in due course.

@SparklingLime this is in America in South Dakota on an 158 acre farm on an Un made road that is private and every farm on the road even the small holdings are owned by a member of a descendant of my maternal family so yes, it’s a family prank. There are 15 farms, and the only outsiders are ranch hands who mostly take two weeks around Christmas off.

@MillieVanilla

Remembered another one

A group of ladies I got quite friendly with over 3 years online, we were all part of a group for parents with ill/disabled children.
One year, one of them suggested a £10 secret Santa. We could buy anything and put a note in.
All addresses given to one lady. 14 of us took part.
I got a postal box, jazzed it up and put in some really nice things for the lady I got and her 2 small children. Spent the full £10 and really enjoyed doing it.
One by one everyone showing what they got and saying thank you. Except me.
I never got sent a damn thing. I was so disappointed and felt like the person just didn't want to know. Obviously the lady who organised knew who it was (not the lady I got) buy wouldn't tell me.
The group suggested whoever it was should be quietly chucked from the group as it was so lazy and rude. Lady who organised said no as then we would all know.
So I left instead. I genuinely believe the woman organising was responsible. She was so off with everyone for being cross that someone let the side down, making excuses that perhaps they hadn't known what to get.
I still speak to two of the group though.

similar thing happened to me. I sent my present(and one to the organiser as she had to not do it) got nothing. in the end I asked. the person who got me pulled the woe its me, I have the hardest life.(it was a group where everyones kids were disabled) and everyone was all over her. I left . I was so hurt.

Well at least people got a secret santa gift. I agreed to do it and somehow I was not included, I go in late some days. I didn't realise until the last minute when I overhead talk of it They exchanged gifts discreetly so I wasn't aware they did it.

@ilovethecold

I got a candle and at the front it said ' Fanny Flaps '

Brilliant! I want one of these 🤣🤣

Beer pong. I was pregnant at the time

@deste

Our manager gave me bubble bath, we only have a shower so it was put on top of the bathroom cabinet. I was cleaning the bathroom one day and decided to wash it because it looked dusty. It slipped through my hand and it went through the wash hand basin leaving a huge hole. We got enough insurance money to put in a lovely new bathroom.

What on earth was it made of, that it caused such damage?