Secret Santa Gifts Under £15 That Don't End Up in the Bin
Secret Santa is a strange ritual. You get given a name, a budget of about a tenner, and roughly four days' notice. Most people panic and buy a novelty mug, a bag of chocolate coins, or something mildly rude from a shop near the station.
And then everyone opens their gifts in the break room, laughs politely, and about ninety percent of it goes in a drawer or in the bin by February.
It does not have to be like that, and the fix is not spending more.
The rule that makes Secret Santa work
Buy for the thing you actually know about them.
You might not know your colleague well. But you almost certainly know one thing. They are always the first to mention their dog. They play games at the weekend. They cannot function before their second coffee. They have a running joke about the state of the office kitchen.
One true detail beats twenty pounds of generic. The whole point of Secret Santa is the small shock of being noticed by someone who was not obliged to notice.
Why coasters, of all things
We make a lot of engraved slate coasters, and they have quietly become our most requested Secret Santa item. There are a few reasons and none of them are exciting, but they all matter.
They are £10, which is inside almost every office budget. They are the right size to wrap without it looking apologetic. They are genuinely used, because everyone has a desk and everyone puts a drink on it. And unlike a mug, they do not take up cupboard space or start an argument about whose turn it is to wash up.
Mostly though, they work because the design does the talking. Natural slate, engraved, no plastic, no tat.
Picking the right one
For the one who does not speak before coffee. Coffee, because murder is frowned upon. I don't need a motivational quote, I need coffee. May your coffee kick in before reality. There are more of these than there probably should be, which tells you something about our customers.
For the gamer. I paused my game to be here. Lag made me spill it. Insert coin for another round. These get the biggest reaction from the people who did not expect anyone at work to know.
For the dog or cat person. It's not really drinking alone if your dog is home. Self explanatory, and it will end up on their desk permanently.
For the one with the dry sense of humour. Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult. I'm just a little ray of pitch black. Eye rolling is my cardio. Safe for an office, funny enough to be worth keeping.
For the actual Christmas enthusiast. Tis the season to get tipsy. Snow is falling, wine is calling. Sipping on my jingle juice. If they started playing Wham in November, this is your person.
A word on the rude ones
We do make some that are not office appropriate. You will know your workplace better than we do. If in doubt, the sarcastic ones land just as well and nobody has to have a conversation with HR about it.
Buying for a whole team
If you are the person organising it rather than just taking part, a set of different designs for the whole office works better than everyone buying separately, and it means nobody ends up with chocolate coins. Get in touch and we can sort something out.
Everything is engraved to order in Guernsey and personalised pieces need five to seven working days, so if your work do is in the first week of December, order in November rather than the week before.