Secret Santa has a specific shape. There is a cap, usually twenty or twenty-five. The person is a colleague, so you know what they drink and almost nothing else. And it gets opened in front of everyone, which is the part that decides everything.
That last constraint is why joke gifts keep happening and why they keep failing. A joke gets four seconds of laughter and then sits on a desk until someone throws it away. A useful object gets used for years and the person remembers who gave it.
The rule that makes this easy
Buy something for the desk or the commute, not for the home. You have seen their desk. You have not seen their kitchen, their bathroom or their taste, and guessing at those is how you end up with something returned.
For the desk
An aluminium phone stand props the phone up at eye level during calls instead of leaving it flat and ignored. A folding laptop stand is the same idea for the person hunched over a laptop all day, and it folds flat enough to live in a bag.
A walnut headphone stand is the one people react to. Headphones currently live on the desk in a tangle, and solid wood reads as considerably more expensive than it is.
For the commute
A mini location tracker is the safest twenty-dollar gift there is, because the colleague who loses their keys has already told everyone about it.
A crossbody phone strap suits the person who walks to work holding a phone in one hand and coffee in the other. A everyday backpack sits at the top of most Secret Santa caps but wins the room if the cap allows it.
For the one who makes coffee at their desk
Every office has one, and they are the easiest person in the building to buy for. A knock box or a vacuum coffee canister lands well because it addresses something they have already thought about and not fixed.
What to avoid
Nothing scented — you do not know what they like or what they are sensitive to. Nothing with their name on it. Nothing that makes a joke about their job, their age or their personal life, however affectionate. And nothing edible, because someone in the room always has a restriction nobody mentioned.
If you are shopping rather than reading: Gifts for someone who has everything is the pieces that work when you do not know their taste.
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Common questions
What's the safest kind of Secret Santa gift for a colleague?
Something for their desk or their commute, not their home — you have seen their desk, but not their kitchen, their bathroom or their taste.
What should you avoid buying?
Nothing scented, nothing with their name on it, nothing that jokes about their job, age or personal life, and nothing edible, because someone in the room always has a restriction nobody mentioned.
What's a safe gift for the colleague who's always losing things?
A mini location tracker — it is the safest low-cost gift there is, because the person who loses their keys has usually already told everyone about it.
