The Office Christmas Gift Exchange: Are you doing it right?

It’s feels like we’ve only just settled back into the year and can you believe it, it’s Christmas again. With the festive season comes the time-honoured tradition of the office gift exchange. And in the office, that often means some kind of Christmas gift game.

A workplace gift exchange is a great opportunity to relax and have a bit of fun, while showing some appreciation for your hard-working, ready for a break colleagues. It’s also a chance to step away from the grind for a moment and get in to the spirit of the festive season with your work friends.

There are many different ways to have a bit of fun with gift giving at the office, your best starting point is to let the personality of your team dictate the way you exchange gifts. Office gift giving is definitely not a one-size-fits-all situation. Check out our examples below to get the merriment started.

Traditional Kris Kringle/Secret Santa

Whatever you choose to call it Secret Santa or Kris Kringle, the spirit remains the same. Pull a name from a hat and buy a gift for that person. It’s a simple yet fun way to give gifts, the “secret” part is that the gift is from Santa and the giver remains anonymous.

1. Ask around for those who’d like to participate (not everybody will, and that’s a-ok!)
2. Make a list of names on separate pieces of paper and pop them in a hat or box
3. Have all participants pick a name out of the hat. That’s the person they will be buying for. Keep the name of your recipient to yourself though
4. Set a budget – setting a budget just makes life easier for everyone and keeps things fair
5. Nominate a day for everyone to bring in their presents (tip: send a reminder the day before!)
6. Throw a morning tea, or have everyone go out for lunch together to exchange the gifts
7. Put all gifts in a central spot, nominate a “Santa” to distribute the gifts and….OPEN!
    

There are various versions of this game. In some, participants answer a survey of their favourite colours, hobbies and foods. This helps to take away the guesswork and is perfect for large teams, or newer teams where participants maybe don’t know each other very well (yet!). This is a great “getting to know you” exercise.

A Diabolical Twist on Secret Santa

This game isn’t for the faint of heart. This often rowdy version of Secret Santa, is a little naughty, definitely louder, and can get a little crazy! It’s also known as Dirty Santa, Stealing Secret Santa, or White Elephant Exchange, whatever you call it, the rules remain the same.

In this game, each participant brings a gift worth a pre-determined amount. All gifts are placed in a common area, and from here it gets tricky, so pay attention!

Let’s assume there are 10 people in your group. 

1. Write the numbers 1-10 on separate pieces of paper and put them in a hat
2. Everyone chooses a number, no secrets in this game
3. Player 1 selects a gift from the pile, opens it, and shows it off to the group
4. Player 2 has a choice to:
   1. Take a gift from the pile, or
   2. Steal the gift from Player 1
5. If the first gift is stolen from Player 1, that first person gets to choose another gift from the pile
6. Player 3 has the option of choosing a new gift, or stealing from the first two players, and so on and so forth

Rules

1. In order, each player opens a gift, or steals from previously opened gifts
2. If a gift is stolen from you, you can steal another gift or open a gift, BUT you can not steal the gift just taken from you
3. A gift is to be retired once it has been through three rounds. That is, if a gift has been stolen 3 times it is now retired, OR if the player has had a gift stolen from them 3 times they are now allowed to keep their gift and they are out of the game
4. The game ends when there are no more gifts on the table and everyone has something. 

A note for gift buying: Themed gifts can be a fun idea, suggesting a colour theme or a specific gift idea specific to your group. Whatever your game, theme or not, it’s always a nice idea to put a little thought into the gift you buy.  Try to think of something that will be theft-worthy. Maybe don’t re-gift that rose-scented hand lotion Nana gave you 3 years ago, this definitely isn’t an opportunity to recycle unwanted gifts.

For a fun variation on Dirty Santa, keep the gifts wrapped until the end! For a little extra chaos keep unwrapping until the end….everyone selects a gift and then have everyone unwrap at once and let the stealing begin!