Beware Santas Secrets

As it’s the start of December, and everyone is getting all excited about bedecking their living quarters with shiny detritus, I thought I’d write about one of my favourite parts of the Christmas festival; the ruinous phenomenon that is…. Office Secret Santa. The reason that this is one of my favourite things is that it gives plenty of opportunity to observe human interaction and behaviour, whereby people are put under unnecessary and undue stress, all within the guise of an event that is supposed to be ‘great fun’.

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I’m not sure to be honest if the Secret Santa is still a major deal, given the changes over the last few years to working habits, and I myself haven’t subjected any of my teams to it since I left the world of the big corporate, where it was deemed sacrilegious to decide against it. It may be that some of you have never even encountered this working relationship death knell first hand, and so I think a good way of explaining it would be to run through the dynamics of the different givers and receivers of gifts that abound in every office. For those who don’t have any clue as to what I’m on about, the basic idea of Secret Santa is that everyone has to buy a gift for a randomly assigned colleague, with a pre-determined cash budget, normally to be then presented and opened together as part of a sick torture ceremony.

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First off the virtual catwalk, we have the office joker/s. This is the person who thinks it’s hilarious to give whoever they get in the Secret Santa the most outrageous gift they can think of. As it’s a secret, they lose any inhibitions they may once have had, and usually push the outrage far further than anyone would believe is possible in a professional environment. I once saw an office joker buy the conservative elderly receptionist a massive chocolate appendage (I knew it was him because he couldn’t contain himself and told me later after a few drinks). The office joker gift gets worse the more jokers there are in the office, as they all try to outdo each other in the outrage stakes.

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Secondly we have the overly sincere gifter. This person will spend far far too much time and effort in the purchase of their gift, and will watch intently as the recipient opens it, with a thoughtful tear in the eye as they expect it to be a massive hit. Obviously what then happens is the recipient hates the gift, makes a sarcastic remark before discarding it on the nearest table, and the gifters entire Christmas is ruined by the experience.

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Thirdly we have the in but not in participants. These are those who (potentially wisely) are well up for playing Secret Santa, but on the day of the giving ceremony absolutely refuse to open the gift they have been given, for fear that the gifter sits in one of the two above categories. This then results in arguments along the lines of ‘what was the point of joining in if you’re not going to play’ and everyone falls out with them for ruining the game.

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All in all, if you’ve never played Secret Santa, and someone in the office suggests it, run for the hills. Or if it’s too late for this year and you’re committed already, probably best if you contract a mysterious 12 hour stomach upset that means you miss the afternoon part of the Christmas event and can only join for the drinks after, whereby you can bask in the joy of being told that Karen in accounts is a bitch because she didn’t like her reindeer jumper from Primark, or that Bob in operations didn’t find the Mankini as funny as everyone else did. ?

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P.S. feel free to let me know if I’ve missed any Secret Santa personalities in the comments.

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