"Secret Santa" (dust collector gifts) STRESS ME OUT

[NEVE and TRISTAN]

Feel free to ignore me...but the stress of having to purchase a hundred $10 gifts for every Christmas party or group I am in really is not fun to me. I mean you can't buy anything that really reminds you of the person, you usually don't know what person you're getting and it's a royal pain in my arse...and I guess I know they will be dust collectors, put in the trash or thrown in a closet like all of the dust collectors I've gotten from "secret santas" over the years...

Thank goodness I found 4 christmas ornaments at Sams club, the kind that are glass and painted inside for $10...but really I get thru the holidays just fine, but the secret santa gifts are what stresses me out!!!
Neve
AKA "mama2be"-forgot password
and Baby Boy Tristan born @UNC
Feb 25, 2003
Brother to 3 pups "gees" and 2 kitties

[bluej]

I hear ya! I'm unimaginative so I would always go to Bath & Body Works and pray that I would pick a scent that the gift receivers liked! Then I started making my own lotions, scrubs, bath bombs, etc. so now they are all essentially getting the same stuff but has a little personal touch added (or at least I HOPE they see it as being more personal b/c I made it for them).

[deborah_r]

I totally hear you, Neve! Although all of it stresses me out, but those little gifts are like the last straw!!

[aliceinwonderland]

I hear you loud and clear!! We have to do this at work, and I honestly don't see the purpose: if you don't know the person getting the gift, how can you really get something they have a chance of liking....Ugh...

[NEVE and TRISTAN]

Well now they add this game to it where you spend 24 hours stealing each others gift...so then the feelings are hurt of who is "stuck" with an awful gift, or better yet the "awful gift" is one that you bought!!! Which usually is not the case since I stress way to much over these damn dust collectors that I always buy a more expensive dust collector...UGH!!!!

I swear I'm not a ba hum bug...I'm fa la la la laling as I type...I just hate secret santa gifts. So now I have to run out and buy some "wine" themed gift for my wine club, a group of people who have fricking everything they want, and certaintly don't need a $20 item from me...
Neve
AKA "mama2be"-forgot password
and Baby Boy Tristan born @UNC
Feb 25, 2003
Brother to 3 pups "gees" and 2 kitties

[JulieL]

My old job was the king of extra crap!!! Here is what I mean:

First we HAD to buy gifts for the four owners. The managers expected everyone to pitch in $20 each. The reason behind that was that the owners had LOTS of money and expected a rather nice gift, please! They summer at this cottage or that resort type of money, must be nice.

Then we were practically forced to do secret santa. If you didn't do it, you weren't "part of the group", what ever that means!!! That was $15

Next we were asked to help donate to a local charity. Ok I love that people like to give to a good cause. But here is the kicker, if you didn't give, you were gossiped about. That was about $10+

I made $20,000 a year at that job and quite frankly didn't have the means to give to almost $50 to people I didn't care for.

Not to mention my first year at that job I didn't get one thank you! So I said forget it the next year and gave inexpensive gifts to the very few people I actually liked!

Can you tell that 2 years later after my leaving that job that it still makes me mad!

So the short to the long is this, I feel your pain. It's always crap I just give at my familys "Rob From Your Neighbor" every holiday season anyway!

[bluej]

Well it's not in the $20 range...think more like $12 or maybe less, but we bought several bottles of Fat Bastard wine last year as sort of gag gifts. I don't drink wine, but those who got it said it wasn't all that bad. We just loved the name!

[nitaghei]

Neve,

Dried fruit is my one standby for inexpensive gifts- works for most diets and food restrictions. The receipent can eat it, or cook with it or whatever - and then it's gone! I found a rather nice gift of assorted dried fruit at Trader Joe's for $5.99.

HTH

Nita
mom to Neel 01/05/03
dog mom to a cocker and a PWD

[NEVE and TRISTAN]

I've seen that and maybe I can even add tot he label some red construction paper and dress the label like santa :)....

I used to buy a wine in DC that had a huge label on it that said "Cheap Red Wine" or "Cheap White Wine", It was very good, but I took it as a gag gift :)...
Neve
AKA "mama2be"-forgot password
and Baby Boy Tristan born @UNC
Feb 25, 2003
Brother to 3 pups "gees" and 2 kitties

[mom2kandj]

Last year(before I quit to be at home) my group at work(8 ppl) decided to avoid the usual Secret Santa stress in our rather large HR dept at work(over 60 ppl). Instead of doing the SS, we drew names and each one of us had to *handcraft* a present for the person whose name we had drawn.

Here's the kicker...you could only spend $2.54! Yes, you could use whatever you had laying around the house, but you could only spend $2.54 (a totally off the wall price cap suggested by one of the guys!)for additional materials including wrapping! Since the premise was so silly, we knew not to expect beautiful, extravagant gifts. We also know that once we got a kick out of it, most would be thrown in the trash or donated to charity! Some of the items given included: a paperweight made of 254 pennies glued to a piece of cardboard, a picture frame made out of cardboard, christmas wrap, and an ornament, stilts for vertically challenged girl made out of coffee cans decorated with glitter and yarn, and a bead/safety pin paperclip holder made out of a tuna can.

Yes, some might say we were a bit crazy, but we certainly didn't end up spending an arm and a leg or coming home with a white elephant! :)


Rose
mom 2 Katie (almost 3!)
& Jack (19 months)

[aliceinwonderland]

I'm sure you guys have heard of "Two Buck Chuck" at Trader Joes??(the name of the wine is actually Charles Shaw, but the nickname comes from it's price (it's actually closer to $3 after tax, but still...)

Now I want a glass of wine. One more thing to look forward when this pregnancy is over :)

[NEVE and TRISTAN]

They look like they are having so much fun!!! :)
I wish I could get a way with doing something like that for SS!!!

Neve
AKA "mama2be"-forgot password
and Baby Boy Tristan born @UNC
Feb 25, 2003
Brother to 3 pups "gees" and 2 kitties

[cchavez]

I agree FB is pretty good and the label is too funny. I only have one secret santa to do this year but it finally dawned on me I don't need anymore dust collectors! I would be happy w/ a bottle of wine or a gift card. But in reality, we should all just pool our money and give it to a worthy cause!

[mom2kandj]

Thanks! We were too lazy and still haven't gotten around to taking formal Christmas photos! That shot was taken at a Mighty Ducks game and is the pic we used for our Christmas cards! :)


Rose
mom 2 Katie (almost 3!)
& Jack (19 months)

[Sandy]

My husband is the king (and not in a good way) of these gifts and we usually end back up with them. Last year it was a 20lb bag of sugar, 501bs of rice and a costco size package of toilet paper. He thought these were the best gifts in the world and couldn't figure out why no one wanted them.x( Oh well at least I didn't have to go buy toilet paper for a while.;-)


Sandy mom to Alexander Thor 3/16/02

[muskiesusan]

These things also drive me crazy, especially the swapping at the end!

If the party doesn't have a theme, we usually just by lottery tickets. Its quick, easy, and the person at least has a chance of getting something more useful than anything I would normally get!

Susan
Mom to Nicholas 10/01/01
& Baby #2 due 4/23/04!!!!

[nigele]

I bought a $15 box of Godiva chocolates today for my Bunco group's Secret Santa. As I left the store, I thought to myself "I'll end up with something junky and somebody else will be walking away with Godivas."

Maybe I'll play sick on Bunco night and keep the chocolates for myself! ;-)

[jec2]

I have on several occasions done a similar "white elephant" gift exchange. The point of this is not to buy a thing, but find something truly useless or silly in your house (probably those gifts from the in-laws!) and then conduct a gift stealing method. So, everyone draws a # and the lowest selects a wrapped gift first. The next person can either open a new one or steal from the lower #. This continues until all gifts are open. The fun of this is that you really want to be creative with your junk. I've seen bed pans, chia pets, nude wooden carved sculptures, velvet nude painting. There are "good gifts" too e.g. a bottle of wine, bottle openers, etc. It is fun and honestly the giver doesn't mind that it will probably end up in the garage sale bin! Some gifts have even been repeated year after year as a running joke.

[suribear]

I think swapping is ok if it's with gag gifts, but with "real" gifts, that's mean!!

Kris

[Melanie]

I love the 'stealing game,' it cracks me up, it's fun, and a good ice breaker when I don't know a lot in the group.

Anyway, we've been invited to one that is a 'white elephant' gift. I was joking around about what we should bring and Dh took my suggestion to heart: "an empty box of See's Candy with crumpled wrappers." oy! He put one piece of candy in it and it was all I could do to keep him from taking a bite out of it!

...there is a gift certificate for a pound stuck to the bottom under all the wrappers, so it's not *that* horrible...

Now what am I going to bring...?

At my work we did "ornament" exchange. Since I worked with a large diverse group it was fun to see the varying meanings around the world in the word: "ornanment." Some brought vases or lamps.

[NEVE and TRISTAN]

Sams club has some ornaments 4 for $10 that are the kind that are painted from the inside, they are very nice...that is what I got my bunco SS...

Melanie, I don't mind the stealing thing as long as it does not go on and on and has a limit...once they stole for hours :)....
Neve
AKA "mama2be"-forgot password
and Baby Boy Tristan born @UNC
Feb 25, 2003
Brother to 3 pups "gees" and 2 kitties