Lip balm. A pair of socks. Some kind of “comedic” mug; The selection of Secret Santa presents gifted by colleagues each festive season ranges from the boring to bizarre and – more often than not – wind up in only one place by January: the bin. These forced-fun emblems stand to see a lengthier shelf life in the supermarket they spawned from than in our begrudging homes. Which leads most Grinches to reach the same conclusion: with a (corporate) Christmas haul this disappointing, surely it’s time to give the tired tradition Santa’s big shiny boot?
According to a survey conducted by rubbish removal company Hippo, a fifth of us admitted to launching gifts from our colleagues straight into a black bag. “These workplace exchanges are proving to be more wasteful than wonderful. Small gestures can have a big environmental impact,” the company’s managing director, Gareth Lloyd Jones, observed.
The man has got a point. The UK Environment Agency found that household waste increases by 30 per cent during the festive period. “For the office scrooges, perhaps the most appreciated present in the office this year would be skipping Secret Santa altogether,” he adds. Listen, it’s the Hallelujah chorus.
A glance at Reddit will show you, office Secret Santa almost always ends in dissatisfaction on all sides. “A manager of mine got given one of those adult colouring books one time and she ended up sacking the person that gave it,” one person shares. “I got a used candle,” another user writes. “Packet of condoms and two 50ml spirits miniatures,” a third victim says. “They were ‘wrapped’ in the McDonald’s bag that her lunch came in, stapled closed with my name written on it. There was a cold, forgotten French fry in the bag. That was the last Secret Santa I ever did.” Who can blame them? They probably would’ve preferred the Big Mac.
Even if our gift selection doesn’t get us fired or called into a meeting with HR, the process of presenting your piece of tat to a near stranger can be excruciatingly awkward. Neil from IT does not want the giant Jenga set you found for him in the charity shop. The intern has no interest in a portable coffee cup and stale pound shop Toblerone. It’s decidedly hard to buy “good” gifts on a measly budget for people you don’t know all that well. Research shows that around 42 per cent of us don’t feel a sense of connection to our coworkers.
Perhaps, herein lies the problem.
In reality, it’s not just office Scrooges who’d like to see Secret Santa ousted from the workplace entirely. A recent employee wellness report found that 60 per cent of workers don’t like taking part in the tradition. While Gen Z were semi-enthusiastic, with 51 per cent excited to take part, a huge 72 per cent of over-55s wanted out of the gift exchange for good. Like all things, the novelty evidently wears off – there’s only so many times you can say “Ah! A comedy drinks mat!”
Additionally, while many are opting for family Secret Santas with a budget of £100 or more, so everyone gets one thing they actually want and only has to buy one item, office editions do the opposite and put pressure on people to spend money they don’t have on junk nobody appreciates. At a time when financial pressure is huge and 13.5 million UK adults have said they plan to cut back on Christmas spending this year, the last thing you need is another person on your list. Plus, every year, someone forgets to bring in their present and a participant is left empty-handed.
Ultimately, the issue is that Secret Santa is forced (read: fake) fun. Like a pizza party when you were promised a promotion or a company retreat instead of a bonus, it simply isn’t going to soften the blow of stagnant wages that have failed to keep up with inflation. You can wrap it up in tinsel as much as you want, but corporate Britain is a bleak place to be right now. We’d rather be with our actual friends and family than exchanging a piece of plastic with a yawning suit.
This being said, a surprisingly fun alternative has entered the chat in recent years from America: White Elephant. The Christmas game got its name from the sacred animals kept by Southeast Asian monarchs, which legend says the ancient kings would give to courtiers who annoyed them, as the royal pets were expensive to keep, protected from doing any labour and couldn’t be sold on. Really, they were more of a burden than a blessing. Imagine the giddy glee of landing a modern equivalent upon your workplace nemesis. Ho, ho, ho. God bless us, everyone!
White Elephant follows similar rules to Secret Santa, except you bring gifts that are genuinely coveted, a funny gag – or complete, intentional trash. Players all draw numbers and, starting with the person who picked one, take turns to unwrap a gift, with each subsequent player then having the chance to steal someone else’s present and replace it with their own. Essentially, it’s chaos and mutiny – and a lot more entertaining than smiling through the pain of opening yet another Boots shower set.
So, if your office insists on a gift exchange, perhaps introduce the White Elephant to the room this year – and hope you’ve got more conniving tactics than your boss or your least favourite colleague.
