Secret santa

[PerkyOchrePeer]

Does anyone else dislike secret santa. We did one and i took part at work. I didn't like what I got

Poor you

I bloody hate it. One year a team member didn't like me so just didn't bother. Watching everyone else get gifts and not getting anything sucked.

Also DD (14) keeps getting sucked into it with her friends. Last time she spent her last £10 of pocket money on a nice gift and got homemade biscuits back.

I wish we could all just not bother. Less stuff in land fill and less mental load at Christmas.

I only did it because everyone else did. Ny gifts were horrible and I threw them away. Im never doing secret santa again. Im very fussy without gifts and unless you know me very well, you cannot know what to get me. I got a box of mince pies amongst other things and I hate mince pies

It's ok if you know each other and you'd know if a thoughtful gift to get someone but if you just get tat then it's pointless. One year I got a set of Charles Dickens books. Not bad. One other year I got a travel mug. I've never used it but my daughter does. I got a mini suitcase once..no idea what that was about lol

One o my colleagues got an inflatable boyfriend. Its a rubber small boy and you insert it in a bowl of water and it inflated to a larger size and it's supposed to be your boyfriend. It was meant as a joke lol

We used to do Secret Santa with christmas cards, so no actual gifts or wishlists and you were to make a cute card and send it to the person you've got. It could be anything, from store bought to handmade to digital, I usually made it slideshow style (something like this) and I loved participating so much! I still have a collection of 2 handmade and 2 digital cards from previous years. Last year out office manager quit and the new one introduced the standard SS with gifts, set budgets and wishlists, so no one gets useless rubbish. I decided to opt out as I don't like the setting. Cards were at least creative.

I’ve only ever had one job where they did secret Santa, I thought it would be fun and I put a lot of thought into my gift. Went to the staff Christmas meal where we were to open our presents. The recipient of my gift was absent so I didn’t see if they liked it, I get my gift, nice box… open it and… nothing. Literally just an empty box! Wtf?!

I think if a group of people are doing Secret Santa it should be that everyone gets to fill out a small tag that has 3 types of things listed that they like, 3 they really wouldn't like plus any information about dietary needs/alcohol drinker or not.
Set amount of no more than £10.
@PerkyOchrePeer did you actually throw the mince pies away? You could have passed them on.

We did do a list of what we liked. I threw the mince pies in the bin because u was curious so tried one and couldn't pass them on. What do you do if you pretend to like something because a friend of mine received a ponsettia plants last year. She told the person it was very nice. So the person got to another one this year, because she thought she likes it. I'll get here another one. My mum received a box of quality street one year and because she didn't tell the lady she doesn't like quality street every single year. The lady gave her a box of quality streets. What do you do? My mum hated quality streets.

Why not say if you don't like something.
With food that's generally ok.
Why didn't your mum say something?
Still don't understand why you threw the mince pies away. So you tried one - you could have passed the rest of the box to a colleague.
Very odd.
(other than the mince pies did you get something from your like list?)

No i got hand cream and bubble bath. They dis not smell very nicely

Unfortunately some people don't follow the "rules".
If you were all meant to write "like lists" then they should have stuck to it.
A bit unfair to you.
🙁

Yes. We had our list made up of questions like what's your favourite colour and what do you like ie do you read books or watch films or what music do you like.

I put i like films. My favourite colour is red. One of the questions was do you have any food allergies to which I said no.

I should have said I dont like mince pies but at the end of the day secret santa is just a laugh and you dont spend much money

Yes the gift list is a good idea. We dont gave a Christmas party ar woek. Everyone is too busy and it's just an excuse to get drunk

Why hello there ChatGPT.

My son does it at work, and it’s kinda fun as there’s only about ten of them in total. But he’s on minimum wage and I notice that they try and get nice presents, so what I think was once a £10 cap has inched up and he spends about £20, one year £30 as he got the boss. That’s about what he can afford to spend on me! He got a decent present himself but I think it’s pushing it for the younger members of the team.
I think I’ve only ever done it once.

We had a version of this at the work do last night and it was great. Everyone took a present (£5 max, no food or drink, could be secondhand/regifted), and took turns to pull from the bag. Before you took a present you could choose to steal from someone else and they then chose another present from the bag. Presents included a calendar, a glass paper weight, desk toys, fairy lights which changed hands several times.

There were about 15 of us and we all get on well so that probably makes a difference

Yes the gift list is a good idea. We dont gave a Christmas party ar woek. Everyone is too busy and it's just an excuse to get drunk

I hate secret Santa too it’s such a waste of money 💰
They do it in my office and it’s meant to be £10 and I got some shite b&m candle set thing which went straight to the school fair for the tombola - the kids school do non uniform day for a raffle prize so this came in handy and I kept the nice raffle prize of a bottle of prosecco for myself!!!
the worse thing is we are a team of 9-10 women so you don’t buy for a specific person it’s £10 on a gift so basically it is just a load of generic tat! The worst thing in there was a mug and hot chocolate set someone must have re-gifted because the hot chocolate and marshmallows were out of date!
my manager got that and you could tell Sue was a bit miffed I saw her later in the day and I said we need to knock this on the head now it’s pointless and she said next year she would have a re-think

That was a typo meant to say “she” my manager isn’t called Sue!

My husband did it with his work this year got a clearly regifted bottle of gin liquor. He’s doesn’t drink. 🤦🏻‍♀️

We put lots of thought in to his person’s present too.

People should say if they dont drink. I dont drink and people at work know