Christmas gifts

[PercyPigs1]

I'm in a new senior role this year and have a team of 45 who work across 5 sites. I would like to get the teams who work at each site a collective gift. Is the obligatory tub of chocolates or biscuits ok or does that look like I haven't bothered. What do others do?

There are very few things you could choose to buy that would please everyone so a good fallback would be chocolates, biscuits or pastries. Your trick is not to make it look low effort.

Could you order something to be brought in for a breaktime - like nice pastries to arrive mid-morning from a local bakery?

If you go with chocolates or biscuits, make them really good ones, not the ones they'd see in every supermarket. If you're near one, Costco is a good fall back for this type of thing. You could even get a full Christmas cake with a personal message from you. But you do have to get someone to collect.

Honestly can you do something that's not a food gift? Like invite everyone to come online for a meeting after lunch pre Xmas but then keep it to 2 minutes - then say something like 'I actually wanted to say have a lovely Xmas - now please go home early' and give them all an early minute?

I think that sounds fine.
It's the gesture of appreciation that counts.

Could a team lunch be something that would work? Ordering in food for lunch time?