THEY ARE THE two words that fill every fibre of your being with dread, stress and fear: Secret Santa. In particular, the office Secret Santa.
You think your Dad is hard to buy for?
Try buying a gift for someone you only know from making small talk with in the break room.
Yes, it is a tradition mired in uncertainty and horror.
1. The draw
Walking up tentatively to the hat/box and drawing a little scrap of paper. You glance at it, half-smile at everyone and sit back down, while everyone tries to scrutinise your body language and guess who you got.
2. The realisation you have no idea who this person is
If you’re lucky, you’ll draw a mate or a close acquaintance. More often than not, though, you draw someone that you really don’t know from Adam.
“Hmm, she has brown hair, so maybe she’ll like…a Yankee candle?”
3. The fear about who got you
And wondering if it’s too harsh to just pull out altogether?
4. The stress of keeping within the agreed budget
Oh, the budget is €10? Fantastic.
Oh, it’s 2014 and you can just about get a sandwich and coffee for €10, let alone a half-decent gift for someone? Shite.
*goes to Dealz*
5. Fielding questions from colleagues over who has who
Trying to play coy as co-workers manipulate you for information on who got them, while simultaneously gathering intel as to who might have got you. Before you know it, you’re entangled in a web of lies and secrets.
6. The worry that you’ll spoil the surprise for everyone
Because you now have so much information, you’re constantly at risk of revealing all and ruining Christmas for everyone or gaining a reputation as the office snitch. And that’s the last thing you want.
7. The gift exchange
The worst of all.
Either you have to pretend to like your gift (“A novelty hat, lovely!”) or you feel embarrassed about how crap the gift you bought was in comparison to it. Some people will inevitably exceed the stated budget and make everyone else look bad.
It’s basically a lose-lose situation for everyone.
