subject: Buying Secret Santa Gifts Is A Minefield, So Tread Carefully [print this page] Remember the saying, give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he'll eat for life? Secret Santa gifts have the opposite effect. Give your colleague a cracking gift and he'll like you for one lousy day, but make a Secret Santa blunder and you're blacklisted forever.
The problems start the moment you believe that buying Secret Santa gifts, even rotten ones, is OK because the whole charade is covert when in fact it's anything but. It only takes one and before you know it the whole office is spilling the beans on who they had and trying to weasel the same information out of you. With that in mind, there are five Secret Santa gifts that you should buy at your own risk. Take care, you've been warned...
1. The funny gift
Trouble with this Secret Santa gift choice is subjectivity. What generates the heartiest of belly laughs from you could leave your recipient more stone cold than Steve Austin - just look at Star Wars' Ja Ja Binks. Someone, somewhere thought he was hilarious and do you really want that same person in charge of bringing the funny to your Secret Santa gift? I think not.
2. The unoriginal gift
Despite what Hallmark and all the rest would have you believe, women don't always want smellies and face cream, and men don't always love beer, playing golf and farting. Of course office life always produces exceptions, but for the most part these hackneyed, done-to-death Secret Santa gifts have the excitement value of a slightly damp squib.
Think box, and get outside it.
3. The rude gift
Buying something rude or risque presents similar dangers to buying a funny Secret Santa gift, but dialled up to a risk factor of ten. Not only could the wrong gift signal Secret Santa suicide, you could be branded the office pervert and hauled into an HR meeting for your trouble. Chocolate body part anyone? Perhaps not.
4. Executive toys
AKA the desk toy, which is essentially a novelty item with absolutely no value or purpose. Newton's Cradle was the first, which started off in Harrods and made its way into executive yuppie offices all over the place at a time when people had more money than sense. Margaret Thatcher is partly to blame, along with Oliver Stone's Wall Street movie. Best left back in the 80s where they belong.
5. The expensive gift
Think you're being nice by going the extra mile and blowing the Secret Santa gift budget? Wake up and smell the eggnog. Blow the budget and people will know straight away and discern one of two things; you're brown nosing to your boss, or you harbour a secret crush on your recipient. Either way your reputation is ruined. Get a new job and try again next Christmas.
by: Phil Ward
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