Dominic Adriaanse
THE festive season comes with its own brand of anxiety – what to get your colleagues for the annual secret Santa gifting.
How you cope or avoid buying your annual go-to high-end Christmas chocolate box set, is a matter of taking a few minutes and following some simple guidelines.
Your gift-tee is a person, just like you; your goal, to give a gift that says you made an effort, that you care and here are some ideas that may help.
Do your research on the gift-tee, check social media to get a better idea of who they are and what they like. Talk to their work confidants or friends, this person(s) can be a great source of information and can even provide tips or guide you in the right direction.
Use their personalities as a base to find an appropriate gift, it can be subtle or straight forward. Tread carefully, though, as you need to stray away from anything that can be seen as offensive or demeaning. Gag gifts are a great idea in theory, but take care in what the gift says about the person.
Here are some personality types and gift ideas:
Little Miss Sunshine – always smiling with a generally cheerful disposition, to the point of nauseating you. Their desks reflect their personalities usually, colourful and containing knick-knacks, like Hello Kitty. Find something that adds or goes with the theme or suits their personality.
The bad neighbour – usually the borrower of everything from a pen to your stapler, then neglects to return them.
Gift ideas can be anything from their own mini versions of office supplies like staplers, scissors and rulers in a neat box set or making a mock map to the supply closet.
The Push over – usually unable to say no and gets stuck doing more than their fair share.
Desk calendars or clipboards highlighting their schedules or weekly tasks or a self-help guide to growing a back bone.
Remember to keep the gift budget in mind. Ideas can be found online. Make a book of vouchers; for coffee, or running a quick errand, or even better for an after-work drink, which your giftee can redeem whenever the need arises.
You may be a last-minute shopper,which means you will be dashing out with minutes to spare before gifts are exchanged, and when it comes down to the wire, and inspiration fails you then a staple is a bottle of wine, a little book of quotes or handcrafted sweets.
Your local gift store or retailers may have what you need. Most importantly, it is the thought into the gift.