It’s that time of the year again 🎄🎉🎅
If you’re like most students, you’ll probably be going home for Xmas, buying some cool presents for the fam and maybe even have to study for exams (yay). But even before heading off home, you may have the opportunity (or be forced) to play the game of secret santa. A fun (or awkward) little game played between friends, classmates, colleagues or family; you pick a name out of a hat and now you need to buy that person a present. And if you don’t know that person very well… tough luck.
I decided to scratch my head and think of some cool presents you could buy as a secret santa without spending all your Xmas money, but without being too lame either.😉
An experience
I think everyone knows now that experiences make people happier than things. So buying your the person you picked an experience is nearly always a win. But experience is a pretty generic word, so what exactly is it that you can buy them without spending hundreds on a spa? All these snazzy ideas are around £10/per person, depending where you buy.
- A nice dinner (if you know them well enough of course)
- 2 cinema tickets
- Board games; bowling, darts, etc
- Ice skating
- Comedy or improv show
- Pub crawl
- Escape room?
These are just some examples, but the idea is to give them a ticket to something or do something with them as an experience - many times it’s a win.
For Christmas last year, I had no idea what to buy my Dad (as usual) - so I decided to buy some cigars to smoke on Christmas Eve round the fire. The cigars were turned into an experience, which we all ended up enjoying 😛.
Hobby-related
This is a little tricky if you don’t know them well enough, but if you simply ask your person a few questions, ask their friends or look through their Facebook a bit, you’ll probably find something you can use #stalker.
Find that hobby or thing they’re crazy about and stick it on a mug, t-shirt, paper weight, you name it.
For example, for someone who loves sports, you can buy them something like this:
Or for someone who loves pets, something like would be cute:
Of course, you have to make sure they have a sense of humour and that they’ll appreciate something like this. A nice added touch is to add their name somewhere using something like a personalised gift store. It’s great because it shows some effort and is a nice detail for the person receiving the present.
One year we did secret santa at school and everyone knew I was obsessed with Rubik’s Cubes - everyone would always crowd round when I would whip one out and complete it in a few minutes (1 min 20 to be exact 😜). So of course, my Secret Santa bought me a different Rubik’s cube for Xmas. It didn’t work too well and kept jamming, but I still appreciated the effort!
Zazzle is a good shop for fun accessories like that.
Food 🍕
Food always works well with secret santa.
The important thing is to make sure they like the food and aren’t allergic to it 😬.
The first thing you’ll think is ‘chocolate’. And yes, chocolate is awesome but there are a ton of things you can buy as a secret santa in terms of food and that won’t be too pricey:
- Alcohol (depending on what you buy of course)
- Biscuits - shortbread
- Fudge/toffee 😍
- Sweets
- Chocolate (duh)
- Some traditional food where you come from
If you really want to be on the frugal side you can make the food yourself - who doesn’t like home baked cookies? Here is a list of cool Jamie Oliver recipes for Xmas food.
For when you really have no idea
If you really have no idea and you don’t think they’ll mind a more simple present, gift cards are the way to go.
Here are some cool gift cards you can buy:
- Cineworld
- John Lewis
- Vue Cinema
- Sports Direct
- New Look
- H&M
- PC World
- Amazon
- iTunes
You can even send them a wishcard from The Gift Card Centre, if you want them to be also able to pick where they want the gift card from.
So yes, a pretty basic present but if you know they’ll be happy with that then there shouldn’t be problem. It’s also nicer than just giving them £10, since you’re forcing them to buy something they can treat themselves with instead of just paying off their bills #boring.
Some pretty cool Secret Santa ideas there. Many of these won’t go above £10 and can be pretty cool if done right. If you feel one of these is still not enough, you can always combine them; a bit of chocolate with a funny mug, or 1h ice skating with some nice gloves. Time to be creative 🎉🎉
Happy Holidays to everyone and keep hustling 💪
