Surviving Christmas

Often, if you work in an office, you're going to be faced with buying for the grab bag every Christmas. There are a few strategies for making selecting a Christmas gift for this occasion fairly simple.

First, and for obvious reasons, you want to stay fairly generic. Unless there is a mechanism for selecting gender, this is your best bet. For totally unstructured grab bag gifts, stick with items like pen sets, plain photo frames, gift cards and the like. You can get these items within the price range of the grab bag, and virtually anyone would be happy with them.

Make sure the item you choose will hold up well to being tossed into a large bag and shuffled around! For that reason, if you give a frame, be sure it has a plastic window rather than glass. Easily breakable items are off limits, as are those with points or sharp edges!! Items with small parts can be given, provided they are well packaged so they don't lose parts along the way.


Food items are generally not a good idea - especially home-made ones. Brick cheeses are... well... cheesy. Candy might work, but packaging can often be a bit flimsy. Save these for co-workers' personal gifts. Home-made items like cookies are going to break while being jostled around - if they even make it into the office in one piece. It is hard to package these items so that packaging will hold up, too.

Still others who are Christmas shopping for a grab bag gift might consider purchasing a joke gift and including a gift receipt along with the item so the participant can exchange the item for something they would prefer. For example you might want to purchase a CD or DVD to contribute to the grab bag but selecting a CD or DVD which will be appreciated by all the participants and which the participants do not already own can be difficult.


However, it might be fun to purchase a CD from an artist most people would be embarrassed to own or a DVD for a cheesy movie and include the gift receipt so the recipient can return the embarrassing CD or DVD for a CD or DVD they really like. All of the participants will get a laugh out of seeing the embarrassing gift and the participant gets to return the gift so everyone wins in this situation.

I might do something like that, but gag gifts can backfire if you're not careful, or if you have a sense of humor your co-workers don't appreciate to begin with...


Finally, you can give one home-made item that would be appreciated by most people - especially if you are generally friendly with everyone that will be involved in the grab bag, or if you don't know many people and want a way to get to know your co-workers. Homemade ornaments are a wonderful grab bag gift! You can also print out a blank gift certificate on your computer, and use it to give the gift of a free lunch to the person that pulls your gift. I have done that to great success on several jobs.

If you go this route - remember two things: First, you either have to like and be liked by everyone involved, OR you have to be willing to meet new people. Second, you will become known as the "creative" one in the office, and in certain situations this can become a drawback. You will be the idea-go-to-person for everyone that thought your gift was "clever."

Many Blessings,
GrannySue

PS: Don't forget to leave a comment - your hints, tips and suggestions are always appreciated!!