Secret Santa gift exchanges are a good way to cut down your family’s excess holiday spending, and also, in theory, a pleasant, festive way to get to know your coworkers better. If you’re not especially well-acquainted with your chosen gift-ee, however, they can also be stressful as hell!
Having an office Secret Santa can be fun. However, being in charge of organising an office Secret Santa can be decidedly not fun. Depending on the size of your office, getting everyone together to draw names can be a chore all on its own, and when you do, chances are good that somehow, some way, the one guy who was on holiday on selection day will manage to draw himself and you'll have to do the whole thing over again.
My family isn't great at gift exchanges. We tend to buy gifts too late ("Merry Christmas, here's a print-out of what you'll get in January!") or misjudge each other's tastes. We have trouble matching our budgets - do I need to drop as much money on a cousin's new boyfriend as I do on my mother? And if I'm not going home for Christmas this year, do I really need to mail a dozen separate gifts? One year I just forgot to include a family member, embarrassing everyone involved.
