Susanna Beves was a young educator at an international institution in Germany when she unwrapped a present that would forever alter her view on Secret Santas. The gift, a solitaire game, “would have been quite pleasant under normal circumstances,” she recalls. However, it came with a note: “It mentioned that it was picked for me due to my single status and loneliness, suggesting I was unlikely to change that since I had no friends.”
“It was truly horrific,” Beves, now 57, reflects. Upon opening the gift in a room filled with 60 colleagues, she states, “I just felt like crying.” “Everyone was there, and everyone was opening their gifts. I realized that the individual who wrote that note was present with me.”
The note was utterly unexpected. “It was a remarkable workplace with incredible people. I thought we all got along well, and that I was appreciated.” Beves remains unsure of who it originated from. The memory of the remainder of that day is hazy – “I’ve essentially repressed it” – but she is fairly certain she disposed of the gift and the note immediately: “I definitely didn’t bring it home.”
Gifting anonymously among coworkers is meant to bring some festive joy and fun as the year wraps up. Ideally, you would receive a small yet considerate gift – perhaps something tied to an inside joke shared with a colleague. Although truly malicious gifts like Beves’s are uncommon, it is relatively frequent for well-meaning gifts to miss the intended humor, according to Shelley Poole, managing director of Wellington HR consultancy. “I don’t want to act like the HR fun police,” she asserts. “If done correctly, it can be enjoyable. However, sometimes individuals take things too far and fail to consider the feelings of the recipient.”
When selecting a gift, Poole advises against “trying to be humorous”, especially if making fun of someone’s perceived flaws, like giving soap or deodorant to someone with noticeable body odor, or headphones to someone deemed overly loud. “That can lead to people feeling quite embarrassed,” she notes. “I’ve witnessed grievances arising from such instances.”
When receiving a gift meant to be funny, individuals may feel compelled to laugh along with their coworkers, even if they are genuinely upset inside. This was the experience for 59-year-old Tony O’Brien when he participated in a Secret Santa at his first full-time job with the Northern Ireland civil service. At that time, he was still residing with his mother, who bred dogs.
“One of her dogs had a litter of puppies. One of them was a white boxer, which are quite rare,” he explains. “I fell in love with it and asked my mother if I could purchase the dog from her. She consented.” He was unaware that white variations of the breed often have more health and temperament issues – until one evening, during a walk, “she bit an elderly lady on the arm, for no reason,” O’Brien recounts. Thankfully, the victim was not severely injured, but he made the difficult choice to have his cherished pet euthanized: “I couldn’t risk having a dog like that in my vicinity that could attack someone.”
He had shared all of this with his coworkers leading up to Christmas. Much to his frustration, the individual who picked his name in the Secret Santa draw thought it was amusing to base a jokey gift on his story – O’Brien received six cans of dog food, a pack of puppy training pads, and two inflatable dogs. “I tried to act like I understood the joke, but I was horrified,” O’Brien admits. “It’s a dreadful story. And I don’t comprehend why anyone would think to trivialize it in such a public manner.”
At times, even well-meaning gifts can be wildly unsuitable: Georgie Goldstein, 33, employed in education in London, “laughed for probably about three minutes” after she unwrapped a Secret Santa present consisting of a set of couple’s mugs. “Morning gorgeous” and “morning handsome” was the wording on the mugs, clearly meant for Goldstein and her long-term companion. However, the gift-giver was unaware that Goldstein’s relationship had concluded just before the Secret Santa event took place. It was “a really, really awful gift” that “struck a nerve.” Goldstein admits, but she could still “see the humor in it.”
Rebekah Jorgensen, a 73-year-old film producer based in Geneva, also found the humor in a Secret Santa experience while working for an outdoor furniture company in West Hollywood. The gift exchange happened at a Christmas gathering where she and her coworkers could invite their families: instead of selecting gifts for particular individuals, anyone who brought a present could contribute to a large pile and receive one in return. Jorgensen had brought her then-nine-year-old son, Elliot. Everyone stood in a circle and opened their gifts one at a time, and when it was Elliot’s turn, he unveiled a pair of edible women’s underwear.
“Having no clue what they were,” Jorgensen recalls, “he raised them high for everyone to see and asked, ‘What am I supposed to do with these?’ When it clicked for him that edible meant eatable, he wore an expression of utter disgust.” Fortunately, one of Jorgensen’s colleagues, who had received a packet of gourmet nuts, quickly intervened and offered to trade gifts with him. “So it turned out very well,” Jorgensen states. “Nobody ever admitted to purchasing the underwear,” she adds. “But it was extremely funny.”
Navigating the selection of a suitable gift isn’t the sole hurdle: how one reacts to a received gift can also lead to problems, as Ian, 62, from Salford, Greater Manchester, discovered the hard way. His closest colleague at work – whom he called his “work spouse” – refused to speak to him for a month after he responded negatively to the magnetic jigsaw puzzle she gifted him during the Secret Santa. While he appreciated the puzzle, he had only just installed a plastic-coated fridge in his kitchen, so he announced that the gift was of no use to him upon opening it. “She shot me a glare, and I exclaimed, ‘Oh, it was you, wasn’t it?’” Ian shares. “That really dampened the atmosphere in the room.” It wasn’t until the following year, after Ian had apologized multiple times, that his friend finally forgave him. “I had to do quite a bit of groveling,” he admits – not to mention that he had to keep to himself when he took his gift home and found that it did actually stick to his refrigerator.
Poole, who has over 20 years of HR experience, states she has encountered many complaints related to Secret Santa throughout her career. Typically, encouraging coworkers to discuss the situation or extend an apology resolves the matter. Nonetheless, she emphasizes, “what most certainly isn’t the solution is telling someone they’ve failed to grasp the humor because individuals have every right to be upset.”
At its most serious, “I’ve seen instances where grievances were upheld as they can be deemed harassment,” she notes. “I observed a situation in a heavily male-dominated field where only a few women were employed, and one of those women expressed her discomfort with sexual jokes. Yet, she received a bondage kit as her Secret Santa gift.” Consequently, the whole team underwent training on sexual harassment awareness.
Any gifts of a sexual nature should be avoided, advises Poole, adding “there are many things you may consider to be safe gifts,” such as chocolate, that might pose a problem if someone is sensitive about what they consume. The same applies to alcohol.” She suggests consulting someone who knows the recipient well to determine what might be an appropriate gift for them.
Negative Secret Santa incidents can linger with individuals indefinitely: O’Brien feels that the ill-conceived dog gifts “set me on a path to becoming quite cynical about my colleagues.” For the remainder of his career, “I truly kept my distance, sharing very little of my personal life with anyone at work,” he remarks. Receiving the gift “certainly contributed” to his choice to shift departments soon after, as he admits he “couldn’t look my coworkers in the eye afterward.”
O’Brien was not the only one in the Northern Ireland civil service who faced an undesirable Secret Santa experience. “There were other examples of inappropriate, mean-spirited, and spiteful Secret Santas that led to a decision within the civil service to completely abolish Secret Santas,” he shares. “People were misusing it as a pretext to retaliate against colleagues they disliked or had issues with.”
In addition to outright bans, workplaces have implemented other measures, such as making it mandatory to disclose the sender’s identity when the gift is unwrapped or allowing recipients to provide a wishlist of gift preferences. Interestingly, Goldstein is against Secret Santa wishlists, which are completed prior to the gift exchange at her current workplace, despite the fact they could have prevented her disastrous gift experience. “The enjoyment of Secret Santa lies in guessing who might have selected your gift,” she asserts. Even though receiving couple’s mugs right after a breakup “was an absolute disaster”, it “actually led to a more engaging, enjoyable, and humorous discourse as a result.” The possibility of receiving a poor gift can, in her view, “be part of the fun.”
However, this is assuming the gift isn’t a character attack, of course: Beves declined to take part in Secret Santas after receiving her solitaire game, only eventually agreeing years later under the condition that the giver’s identity be disclosed on the gift. “It hurt me deeply,” she shares. These days, she is cautious about gifting in general, which she admits might simply stem from getting older and wanting to avoid accumulating possessions. Nevertheless, she believes her Secret Santa experience has “potentially” intensified this perspective.
Secret Santas are “giving for the sake of giving in many respects,” Beves states. “I don’t really see the value in it.”
Some individuals featured in this article responded to a Community callout. You can contribute here.
