Secret Santa in the Office: How To Improve Relations With Your Colleagues this Christmas?

It’s the most wonderful time of the year.....and the most stressed one...! A Christmas party in the office is an exceptional endurance that not everyone can cope with. The reason is pretty simple-there too many troubles and misunderstandings at the end of the working year that can spoil each celebration. 

How to avoid being completely upset and compelled? One of the easiest ways to chill is to play some Christmas games with your colleagues to upgrade the Christmas mood and stay safe and sound before upcoming celebrations. 

In the following article, let’s discuss the rules of playing a Secret Santa team-building activity and how to win anyway!

Reasons To Play

Even if you feel more like the evil Grinch than festive Santa this holiday, avoid participating in such a game that makes you stand out from your office team as a maverick who isn’t the right team member. It would cause an additional doubt in your professional skills; it sounds a bit scary.  

Bear in mind that the Secret Santa activity’s critical goal is to promote efficient teamwork and increase employee confidence. Therefore, participation determines your readiness to participate in every further team-building exercise. 

How to Organize It Properly?

We recommend the activity organizers to put together a short questionnaire to help gift-givers grasp their receivers. It works on the extended offices where gift-givers and gift-receivers might not know each other. 

Questions should be such as your preferred hobbies, food, or holiday. It can support gift-givers to get something that might help to understand their receiver will better and present something genuinely matching. 

Even if you don’t fancy your Secret Santa gift, you’d better still confer your affection for the gesture and thank your Secret Santa anyway. That person spent both time and money to prepare something for you so that they thought you would like it and you must show it. 

Bear in mind, the Secret Santa swap between colleagues is, first of all, a gesture of joint work. It’s not your BFF, husband or wife, so they don’t know you almost as well.

Remember that all the employees will go on holiday. Thus a budget should be pointed out in advance. The standard price limit to play the game approximately begins at $25. It’s not too scanty where you’re just getting someone a garbage gift, and it’s not overly generous where it might put someone out of their budget and spoil the overall Christmas mood.  

Avoid buying personal items such as perfume that might be deemed to be amorous, particularly if given by a male to a female coworker. Anything you would buy for your vital other should be withdrawn. 

Spot the fact that office gossip might grow like wildfire. Therefore You’d hate for the word to get back to your gift-giver that you dislike your gift. The Secret Santa game is thought to be a light-hearted, entertaining activity. It’s not about the present, and whether you like it or not, it’s about the company culture itself. 

Rules to Play

Traditional Secret Santa precepts are super easy: no one knows who is taking whom a gift. Hereabouts are the steps for hosting a classic Secret Santa game in-person:

• Write each employee’s name on a piece of paper. Meet all the coworkers up and have them scratch their names. Make your handwriting as straightforward as possible. 
• Randomly assign a Secret Santa to each player. It is the fun part of the whole game activity. Take a hat and put all the pieces of paper into that hat. Each game member takes ONE card and hides it. No one can know who is your gift-receiver. There should be an equal number of both gift-givers and gift-receivers. 
• Plan a gift swap party. Choose a day when everyone can get together. Make sure each gift is marked with the recipient’s name, but not the gifter’s! 
• Suggest who picked your name. Guessing who your tricky Secret Santa is, and revealing your elfy nature to the employee you gifted a present to. That should also be enjoyable and entertaining. 

Speaking about Christmas entertainment in the office, this issue is worth making efforts. It’s always great to meet new people, get in touch with the coworkers you used to neglect earlier, and many other reasons. We understand that this challenging time needs miracles, so take a deep breath and go on working! 

If you’re looking for more inspiration, check out the rest of our blog here. Please browse our shop to find the best personalized gifts for everyone on your list!