Dear Lifehacker, With the silly season round the bend, many workplaces are doing Secret Santa. Can you suggest a handful of $10 presents that would be good for gifting co-workers? The geekier, the better. Thanks, Secret Santa
Dear SS,
You want geeky gifts? You’ve come to the right place! Last year, we published two mammoth gift guides specifically aimed at geeks and gamers — you can check them out here and here, respectively. Despite being nearly a year old, the vast majority of these products are still available to purchase online.
While a lot of the suggestions are on the pricier side, there’s still a handful of great options for around $10. Our bet would be the Caffeine Molecule Stainless Travel Mug, Portal 2 Inter-Spatial earring or Aliens Plush Toy. Or maybe the Pulp Fiction Gimp action figure (if you want to make things weird.)
We’ll be running an all-new geek gift guide early next week, so keep your eyes peeled! In the meantime, you should also check out the retail chain Zing Pop Culture. It has a huge selection of geeky toys, games and merchandise ranging from Star Wars-themed Monopoly boards to Game Of Thrones action figures. It sells a lot of the same cool stuff as ThinkGeek, but without the exorbitant shipping costs.
We also want to hear from readers — what’s an ideal geeky gift for $10 or under? Share your suggestions (and links to buy) in the comments!
Cheers
Lifehacker
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Comments
11 responses to “Ask LH: What’s A Good $10 Secret Santa Gift Idea?”
http://www.amazon.com/BigMouth-Inc-Generic-Weener-Kleener/dp/B000SPHPWI
this one is great for those anonymous work type kris kringles. very much depends on your work place and the type of humour that everyone is used to though.
I don’t think you’d get a licensed Monopoly game for $10.
Stores like Mind Games have lots of brain teaser type games/puzzles for about that price, but they’re mostly in Melbourne.
Well, no. I was just pointing out they have lots of cool stuff.
Thanks for running my Ask LH 🙂
My friend asked me this last year. He’s secret santa recipient was into sports like running and cycling etc. So I suggested elastic shoe laces.
$10 pornhub voucher? if they dont like it, they can go f*** themselves
Good present that works for geek and non-geeks alike for only $10 is those little wooden logic puzzle games you can get from Games World or Toy World.
Hahah I got one of these wooden puzzles once for a cranky old hag at work that I got as secret santa recipient unfortunately. She was audibly disappointed and it made my day even better since everyone else got small bottles of alcohol and I got a cheap poker set – both of which are decent ideas.
Geez. What was her problem?
I think that’s a pretty decent gift, especially if there’s a low price limit enforced.
I think so too. She was not a nice person.
The worst thing about secret santa is when people blow out the agreed upon budget. One year almost everyone in my team got gifts worth $25+ after agreeing to a $10 cap, which mean that I looked like a complete jerk for actually sticking to the limit. Ugh. Office life is shit sometimes.