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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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?
Sketching at Ikea, November 25, 2012
