Fifteen colleagues, one budget, no conversation about it
Team Nord draws names before Christmas. Fifteen people, a twenty-five euro cap, and the same question every time: what do you give somebody you only know from the office? The honest answer is usually a voucher nobody redeems.
Secret Santa differs from every other occasion in that the list belongs to nobody. Fifteen people put things on it, fifteen people take things off. One list per person would be more cumbersome than the problem.
Why here of all places
Why arranging it in the chat does not work
Secret Santa rarely fails on goodwill and almost always on coordination.
- Nobody wants to ask
- "What would you like?" takes the surprise away. So people guess, and get it wrong
- Whoever writes first wins
- In the team group the first suggestion is taken. The others do not know whether it is already gone
- The budget is written nowhere
- And is therefore exceeded by some and undercut by others
- The way out is usually a voucher
- It gets given because it cannot be wrong. For your shop it is the worst revenue of all
One shared list with the budget in the description resolves all four at once – and it does so without anybody having to hold a conversation.
The list itself
Twenty-three wishes, all of them under the cap
Everyone in the team enters two or three things. The cap is in the list description, which appears above the wishes.
| Wish | Quantity | Price | State |
| Insulated mug | 2 | 24.00 € each | 1 of 2 available |
| Small desk lamp | 1 | 22.00 € | Currently reserved |
| Coffee beans, 1 kg | 3 | 19.00 € each | Available |
| Leather notebook | 2 | 21.00 € each | Gifted |
| Rechargeable hand warmer | 1 | 18.00 € | Available |
| Plant for the office | 4 | 15.00 € each | 2 of 4 available |
| Tea selection | 1 | 24.00 € | Currently reserved |
| Headphone stand | 1 | 23.00 € | Available |
Not one wish above 25 €. That is not a feature of the plugin but an agreement – but it stands visibly above the list, and that is why it is kept.
What this occasion turns on
Reserving is the core here, not a nicety
At a wedding a reservation is a convenience. With Secret Santa it is what carries the occasion at all.
- Hold first, buy later
- You draw a name, sleep on it and buy the next day. Without reserving the wish is gone by then
- A short deadline
- Two or three days are enough. A forgotten wish becomes free again by itself instead of staying blocked until the party
- Only with an account
- Reserving requires a customer account. Whoever in the team has none buys directly – that works without signing in
- Your own band
- Right at the top of the list it says "You have reserved:" with quantity and date. Whoever changes their mind releases it with one click
What you set up for it
Two places and one note
With Secret Santa what counts above all is that nobody is pinned down too early.
- Allow reserving
- Without it this occasion does not work
- Reservation deadline
- Keep it short, so that a forgotten wish becomes free again quickly
- Word filter
- With lists that come about among colleagues the filter is no luxury – see The administration
- Giving anonymously
- Whoever wants to does not appear by name in the thank-you notes either. With Secret Santa that is often wanted
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