Gift Exchange Ideas for Your Office Holiday Party

Office gift exchange practice has become an age old tradition. Hence, it lacks the surprise element now. It is like you wake up and you already know that you may find a gift on your desk today. Moreover, coworkers do not bring much variation in choosing gift items; thus, making it all the more predictable. Many end up receiving the same chocolate jar for the third consecutive time. And that's grossly boring. Isn't it?

However, why do we have this culture of exchanging gifts with colleagues? Well, many may have different answers for this; however, one primary aim is to keep up with the holiday spirit at office, so that employees are happy and somewhat motivated to keep working during festive seasons as well.

Employers come up with different ideas to keep up with the holiday mood. And among various ideas of spreading festive spirit in office that are mentioned here; gift exchange holds an important role.

A little change from regular and monotonous work life is quintessential to have employees working with similar efficiency during festive seasons as well. And this uniformity in celebration of office parties is no longer serving the purpose.

Therefore, if you want to make Christmas celebration at office an exciting and thrilling event this year, try these gift exchange ideas below:

Who wins the gift?

Ask all your coworkers to sit in small groups; say five members in one group. Arrange four gift items(one less than total number of members in one group) packed in different sizes. Allow team members to get into a fun filled activity. Perhaps, repeating a tongue twister or anything else that comes to your mind. Repeating games is never monotonous and therefore you can opt for any game that is voted unanimously.

The one who wins the contest gets to take the most appealing and “biggest” gift. The runners up take the second gift and so on. However, the catch is, you never know if the gift that appears to be the “biggest” is really so. The ones who couldn't manage to grab a gift item this time can again get into another contest.

Speaking gifts:

Not going into its literal meaning, speaking gifts are the ones that send messages along with a memento to recipients. All of us owe our professional success to few important people around. Perhaps, your first trainer whom you seldom meet these days. Or one of your colleagues who has helped you to reach assigned targets several times or your very supportive boss. It can be anyone whom you have not thanked enough.

It is never too late to thank and appreciate people for their efforts. Take this Christmas celebration as an opportunity to thank these people and let them know that they have not been forgotten.

This is exactly what I needed:

When someone unwraps a gift item and spontaneously says, “ This is exactly what I need,” consider that you were successful in choosing best gift items for him/her.

Therefore, this festive season concentrate on gifting people with most appropriate gift items. There is perhaps one of your colleagues who always has a messy desk. Place a beautiful and attractive desk organizer on the desk and witness the broad smile on his/her face.

Again, there is someone who starts and ends the working day with a sip of hot beverages such as tea or coffee. Gift a mug warmer or a tea infuser. You will witness that the happiness quotient is much beyond your expectation.

Apart from these, there can be many such items. You only need to be a little observant and creative.

Thus, you now know how you can add a little more in making this Christmas celebration a worthwhile experience. These were simple ideas and you can still have loads more.