We used to do the funny/offensive gifts at my place but it started to get a bit close to the mark when the fat lass in customer services got 3 cans of slimfast. Now it isn't named, you bring in a present and put it in a basket, then each person selects a gift out of the basket and if you don't like it you can swap with somebody who already has a present.
It is just a bit of fun, I got a best of Cliff Richard CD this year 😐
We're all engineers, if we did secret santa it would all be whitworth spanners, IOU for a long stand - to be redeemed at the equipment store in January, and slide rules.
A sharks head bottle opener would be great.
One year a rumour went round our office that one of the women in support was into a spot of swinging so their secret santa present was a large Pampas Grass (which was a bugger to wrap) - I've never seen someone so grateful for a present and it was announced that they had the perfect spot for it in their front garden.
[i]Rusty Spanner - Member
I used to be a bit of a music snob, hence;[/i]
Good job it's secret, I'd kill if someone gave me that!
I got one of these about 3 years ago, it's rubbish, no doubt, but I've still got it on my desk
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I generally get some vaguely cycling related crap, nothing overly exciting but hell, it's all good.
This year I will be giving an entry to Parkrun and 3 litres of Lambrini (£5 in Tesco, bargain). Said recipient will love one and hate the other. This seems like a perfect outcome.
But Parkrun is free to enter?
I got one of these last year. A credit card survival tool. I thought it was pretty cool. Still got it in my wallet. Still never used it.
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But Parkrun is free to enter?
Correct, but she would never enter herself, contrary to what she tells everyone, so I have entered for her. She'll be chuffed.
Yay!!! I got lego.
PrinceJohn - MemberI've always thought Secret Santa was meant to be a giggle?
Yeah, but it's sometimes quite a fine line between funny, mortally offensive, and sexual harassment.
i kind of agree with the OP. it bothers me that christmas is such a festival of cheap tat.
if i got that bottle opener it would go straight to the charity shop - i live in a small flat and don't really have space for crap that i neither want nor need! Much more into food as presents.
it's our secret santa today. got my colleague some posh chocolates. fingers crossed i don't get any tat...
I bought posh chocolate too. I'm quite hoping for tat though. A shark bottle opener would be awesome! 😀
I find a butt plug covers both genders and most eventualities - even better when recipient pretends to not know what it is 😆
The Secret Santa exchanges will be taking place shortly. I'm off out for lunch, I can't bear to watch.
There's a guy that works for me who is the annual recipient of some terrible efforts. It's a longstanding joke that whoever gets him must make it terrible.
Year 1 - The guy had been selling a rabbit hutch for £20 on our intranet. He'd advertised it for ages but it wasn't selling. Eventually a girl from another department called him and haggled him down to £10. He spent weeks moaning about the fact he hadn't sold it for £20. Unbeknown to him, it was his secret santa guy that had actually bought the hutch via the girl. We all go out for lunch to a restaurant where we're exchanging gifts. His eyes light up when he sees the MASSIVE wrapped up parcel and he exclaimed in a high pitched voice "Is that for me?". The look on his face when he unwrapped it and discovered the rabbit hutch was absolutely priceless.
Year 2 - I get him in the draw 😈 He likes vodka, so I bought him a bottle of Absolut. Except I'd decanted the vodka and replaced it with water. As it's got a cork stopper it was less obvious that it had been tampered with. I waited an entire year for him to come in and complain that the vodka was crap but it never happened...
Year 3 - I get him again. This time I give him the decanted vodka in the highland spring mineral water bottle that replaced it. He unwraps it and says "ha ha, a 3/4 full bottle of water". I explain what I'd done and the colour drains from his face. Turns out he'd given away the bottle of vodka as a present to someone else, and he can't remember who. He thinks it may have been the new boyfriend of a friend who they quickly had to find a present for as they were coming to the house 😆
Did you really save the decanted vodka for a whole year??
Did you really save the decanted vodka for a whole year??
Yip. that takes committment
Year 1 - The guy had been selling a rabbit hutch for £20 on our intranet. He'd advertised it for ages but it wasn't selling. Eventually a girl from another department called him and haggled him down to £10. He spent weeks moaning about the fact he hadn't sold it for £20. Unbeknown to him, it was his secret santa guy that had actually bought the hutch via the girl. We all go out for lunch to a restaurant where we're exchanging gifts. His eyes light up when he sees the MASSIVE wrapped up parcel and he exclaimed in a high pitched voice "Is that for me?". The look on his face when he unwrapped it and discovered the rabbit hutch was absolutely priceless.
absolute f*cking genius 😆 😆
absolute f*cking genius
The girl that bought it gave him a sob story that it was her niece that was buying it for her pet rabbit and she had a maximum of £10 to spend. He's tighter than a gnat's chuff and he was raging he had to drop the price to sell it.
I bought the hottest girl at work one of these once and wrapped it appropriately.
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he was raging he had to drop the price to sell it.
Surely then he could sell it again for a tenner and still get his original £20 asking price!
The Secret Santa exchanges will be taking place shortly. I'm off out for lunch, I can't bear to watch.
BoardinBob - Crying with laughter at the rabbit hutch
Once bought a notoriously volatile bloke in our office a 'gift from scotland' doll in a tube from a chairty shop. He spent the afternoon puce-facedly haranguing the organiser of the secret santa while we tittered behind the filing cabinets.
Erm..... Damned computers.
Anyway that's how I feel about Secret Santa.
You know, I keep drifting through life, never knowing what I want, what I don't want, where I want to go and what I want to do...
Now though, I know. I REALLY know, and it's all thanks to STW.
All I've ever wanted..... is a sharks head bottle opener. 😥
Steve, I am your magical christmas fairy.... pif paf poof !! and it shall be yours*, email in profile.
@slowoldman .... what did you get from secret santa? I'm tenterhooks here.
*£5 donation to Cancer Research required.
kewl bottle opener - but here, most beer comes in a bottle with a flip top
I once got a thing which fits to a beer/coke can to make drinking easier. 1. it was from US so won't fit EU metric cans, and 2. here, almost every drink comes in either PET bottle or glass bottle with a deposit. Cans are rare as hens teeth, unless it's German equivalent of special brew in a 1 litre can.
Got one of those credit card survival gadgets when I was in scouts in the 80's. Still got it. Did use the tin opener bit once, back before all tins had a ring pull.
Just what I wanted. Nowt.
Pfft! I got a tin of shortbread shaped like a kilt.
A shark bottle opener it most certainly isn't! 😥
I love secret santa!
This year I got a selfie stick and remote for my phone to take pics and gave a guy a ukulele and some elvis glasses. He loved it.
Such fun!
My flatmate when I lived in Bristol years ago used to work in a casino. At his Secret Santa the usual tat, choccies and wine did the rounds. When he opened his, it was a huge vibrating manhood extension, complete with an external battery pack, which, I kid you not, took 6 DD batteries (although to be frank, it was so big, it looked like it should be running on diesel).
To this day he has no clue who gave it to him.
Worryingly, another of our flatmates used to regularly fire this thing up (not erm...whilst connected to it, I hasten to add) and let it wander around the dinner table under it's own power...he took particular delight in doing this when the original recipient had his girlfriend visiting.
The thing was terrifying - like something out of a Cronenberg movie - thankfully it later got dismantled one drunken evening (to see how it worked, you understand) and the electric motor saw sterling service powering an improvised disco ball at the following year's New Year's party.
Surely then he could sell it again for a tenner and still get his original £20 asking price!
There was a charity shop next to the restaurant and he took it straight in there after lunch
Steve, I am your magical christmas fairy.... pif paf poof !! and it shall be yours*, email in profile.
God bless you sir! But I think it should stay a dream, something to strive for in the future. 😥 🙂
We used to do a buy something for £5 in a Charity shop - and I ended up with a cracking "Cooking with Beer" recipe book, which in my inebriated state I promptly lost!
I'm thinking maybe next year we could organise a stw forum secret Santa, we could have some right fun with that, wadda ya all think?
Aye let me know when you're running it. I'll go out for a bike ride.
Some years ago I found out who'd picked my name out of the hat and we concocted a plan. Come the Christmas lunch everyone is opening their to the value of £10 gift when it got be my turn some generous soul had bought me a playstation 3. ha,ha much frivolity ensued, "you got an empty box", "what's inside the box?", "open it up and see what you really got". Opened it up and what do you know? It was actually a playstation 3 inside the playstation 3 box.
Obviously most people clocked on to what we'd done pretty quickly but I did discover that some of my colleagues were really, really gullible.
