Secret Santa CF's

[BoyzIIMen]

If your group of friends do a Secret Santa, is there always one person who spends the bare minimum rather than the budget you've all agreed in advance?

Every year there is always one awful present and it's happened again this year. The budget is £10 and someone has bought a large bag of crisps!

We always give the option that anyone can withdraw from being part of it if they want, but they never do! None of us are struggling financially!

I'd be interested to hear of other CF Secret Santa presents!

You know there are stingy people everywhere- there is always one. I’d turn detective and work out who it is! And if they are not short of cash I’d ask them why are they being so tight.

Wouldn’t participate in a secret Santa. I have enough stuff and could buy myself something for a tenner if I needed/wanted it. Would rather donate the money to charity to give someone a meal on Christmas Day.

Hate secret santa

Once I was completely forgotten

Another time I was gifted a bath bomb which had a best before date from 5 years ago

I don't understand how people can be so mean / thoughtless

Our SS’s are always well considered, if a bit cheeky, but we are a great team!
The best SS that I ever took part in was a Year 11 tutor group. The present had to be the most tackiest present from the pound shop. Really good fun! And as a year 11 tutor, I was gifted with a vibrating cock ring!!! That was then stolen at break, clearly to entertain others????? Probably need to establish early on the focus of gift giving, but best not to be too dependent on it!!! I definitely would have found use of big crisps, rather than stolen vibrating cock ring ….

They should have handed their gift that they received over to you instead. Ho disappointing.

I probably wouldn't mind a bag of crisps, at least its something I'd use!

Nobody knows who brought each other a present, which is why they get away with it.

A friend's office has had a couple of relatively good Secret Santa ideas over the last couple of years (if there is such a thing):

2023 - Re-gift unwanted presents

2022 - Buy a second hand gift from a charity shop. They gave them a theme, ie something funny or a book.

They suggest a relatively modest value.

I'm not sure what their idea was this year.

People can still take advantage but for 2023 nobody was spending money and in 2022 at least a charity was benefitting.

I like the idea of a theme or more modest budget especially in an office environment.

A woman at work had a daughter who was a singer, but one that appealed to a very mature audience and was considered cringey by younger people.

For secret Santa, she wrapped up a signed photo of her daughter. The recipient, a woman in her early 20s, was not impressed. She tried to leave it behind when we moved venues, but the mother came after her waving the photo like she'd left behind a gold bar.

I used to sell extremely high value bakeware and kitchen equipment. One year with a budget of £20 I was bought cake decorating stuff from Poundland totalling about £2-3.

We had Secret Santa in the office yesterday. About 12 or 13 of us.
Budget €5.
At least 3 colleagues mentioned that we were one present short.
My CF colleague was raving about getting a big box of biscotti and it later transpired she'd contributed nothing. Nor did she bring anything to eat or drink.
Shameless and tight.

A couple of really bad ones stand out for me.

A large neon yellow car sponge, probably purchased at a garage for £1.99 in a panic on the way to the venue.

A colleague at work swore blind she had bought my gift but left it at home. So I had something to open she wrapped the soggy umbrella she had used on the way to work that morning and gave me that. I never did get the gift she said she had left at home. I suspect it never actually existed.

I once got a magnetic glass fish ! lol 😂 Not sure what the thinking was behind it. We all opened our gifts at the Christmas meal too, it was very embarrassing No one ever owned up and I haven’t done secret Santa since. I worked in a school and my friend who was there thinks it was from the Head. lol 😂

I always use to arrange secret santas at work and made sure everyone had a gift to open, even if I had to run out and grab a box of chocolates from the petrol station last thing to ensure everyone got something.I also knew for the most part who got who.

To be honest I think crappy secret santas are part of an office culture, if you have a happy one where management get involved and encourage a good environment then gifts tend to reflect this, in my experience anyway. Most places I worked for would frown upon crappy gifts and make in clear they aren’t acceptable.

Gifts might not always be to tastes but effort was usually put in. “Joke” gifts would be called out if the joke was only a joke for the gifter not recipient. I worked in a sales office once were joke gifts were part of the culture, I got the alleged “hot” MD a tight pair of red g-strings with bells on, it was very much taken as part of the banter joke culture, but at the same time there were staff that would not appreciate gifts like this. One of the reasons I mostly knew who had who was because people would come up to me and ask who this person was. I’d regularly arrange swaps so the jokers got their mates and I’d give the very religious shy office ladies name to someone sensible or keep myself.

I can’t honestly remember any terrible gifts, lots that weren’t me, the worse one I got was a gift set of Johnson and Johnson products. The type you give as a baby gift. I’m allergic to them. I know who got them me a very religious man from a different office ( some cult region that takes 75% of your earnings). He had about 5 kids so I’m guessing it was something he knew people used or a leftover from his last baby. Either way I regifted to a pregnant friend.

I was once gifted a bottle of perfume.....which seems lovely...except it was used, because it belonged to the boys sister 🤐

We do SS at work but in previous years everyone knew who got who so this year the organiser has used an app. Budget is £15 & I've got the newlywed lady so bought her a personalised Christmas decoration along the lines of "our first Christmas as Mr & Mrs Newlywed". I'm hoping she likes it!

I used to work in a small team so everyone knew each other really well. Secret Santa gifts tended to be both relevant and sometimes hilarious. We had a royal family fan so someone had her picture superimposed onto one with the queen and framed. Tongue in cheek somewhat but but she loved it!
Someone got a signed autobiography of their favourite footballer.
We also had crisps gifted but an insane amount of someone’s faves in a Fortnum style hamper. With dips AND wine!

The organiser needs to fix it so the person buying for the crisp person gets them something truly awfully cheap and everyone can be in on the joke

One year I got a boxset that was no more than £10 depending on where you bought it, with a £20 spend.

Another year I was told my gift had been left at home and would be sent to me - over 10 years later I'm still waiting!

I withdrew from the Secret Santa and, soon after, that friendship group, after having to sit and watch everyone open their gifts while I got nothing, as I knew at the time my gift would never materialise.

We are doing Secret Santa at work with a reasonable limit, and everyone does get a decent gift so I don't mind doing that.

We did secret Santa last year for the children’s rugby Xmas party. They were all asked to bring a present (under £5) that they thought would be fun to get. My child got a jar of Lidl jam, that’s not something a kid has bought, it’s something a t££t cheapskate parent has grabbed from the cupboard who almost certainly made sure their own child got the obvious Pokémon card deck packets most other kids brought.

I gave my female boss Little Miss Bossy one year.

Yes, I think sometimes it’s not just the stingy gifts that rankle, but the ones that have involved zero thought or effort. Ok, so everyone’s “busy busy busy” and can’t possibly spare two minutes to buy Lisa in Accounts a good present, but just get a nice box of chocolates or something, not an obvious unwanted tatty thing out of the back of a cupboard.

This depends on who sets the budget. In this case the budget was agreed beforehand by everyone taking part. If someone had wanted a lower budget everyone would have agreed to it.

The genius who is organising it this year has set a sliding budget of between £5-£35 so buy what you feel you can afford… A brilliant way to make everyone feel crap
You all need to opt out of this, it can’t possibly end well.

Yes regifts are bad news