Secret Santa for Office Times

Each year my office holds a Secret Santa event.  There is a price limit of $15 - not much, but the idea is not to alienate those who can't afford much.  I haven't been lucky in the people I've drawn - I haven't known any of them well and trying to find out things about them without making it obvious doesn't always work.  Take this year - I got the new person to the office.  All I know about her is that she's recently graduated with an undergrad degree and seems to like 10-pin bowling (at least she was game to participate with co-workers after work!).  She's only been with us for two months and no one seems to know too much about her either.  I had the opportunity to chat with her for a few minutes, but no luck in sussing out enough details to make gift ideas easier.

I ended up at Michael's today looking for some yarn for my Mother-in-Law.  No luck with the yarn colour matching, but I came up with some interesting gift ideas for my Secret Santa gift.

1. Stacked Snowman tin.  Quite adorable.  Three compartments of graduating sizes.  I thought - candy in the smallest, hot chocolate mix in the next size up, and baked cookies in the largest.  But the tin was $13.99 plus tax.  Didn't leave much room for the contents.  Plus the gift seemed a little lame.
2. Next a set of mismatched socks.  Funky socks - three individuals, all different colours, designs, with buttons sewn on.  Little doodads with button holes so that people can add individuality to each sock.  Sock set was $9.99, doodads were $3.99.  Would put me slightly over, but not too bad.  Still, I wasn't sure if my giftee was funky like that.
3. Finally, I remembered reading a blog last night about making Christmas ornaments with Sculpey baked clay.  Two packages of white Sculpey ($3.99 each), one acrylic gold ink pen ($3.99), star cookie cutter ($1.50) and some red needlepoint thread ($0.50).  Again, just over $15 with tax, but at least this gift wouldn't be too funky and definitely had a Christmas theme to it.

In the end I went with #3.  I'll print the blog instructions on the office colour printer and create my own gift package.  I hope she enjoys crafting with this gift and makes some ornaments for her home.



What do you do for gift ideas when participating in Secret Santa events?  Spend a lot of time getting it right or grab the first thing nearest the cash register?  Perhaps you re-gift/re-purpose?