This sounds incredibly stressful, I feel for you.

Do these places have Christmas parties? I’d like to be a fly on the wall if so. :D

Ah yes, the politics around holidays in the office. Good times. :-/

I work for a large employer and so there are multiple holiday parties, each with their own brand of agony. Nothing quite inspires the holiday spirit like "mandatory, forced fun - you WILL go and you WILL pretend to like it!"

Well in the private office, the parties used to be fun, when we were younger and before he married his second wife. In the institutional setting, most of us like each other fine, but some people don't go, and generally there is a little bit of jockeying for position regarding who sits next to whom. I will probably sit next to the woman who is not contributing to the extortion fund this year.

I am just disappointed in the gifts I am giving the office this year. I really don't care about getting gifts at all. But a couple of people always say my regular gift is the thing they look forward to every year, and I feel like this year is a let down.

I may be able to help with your gift container. Is there a Michaels near you?

I keep a supply of these in white. Add tissue paper appropriate to the occasion, a tag and bow on the handle.

This price is for 13 bags.

Ah, one of the many reasons I am happy to be retired. I received ( and gave) so many gifts over the years and I can only think of one that I still have. One of my first jobs was at a small investment bank. There was plenty of money to,throw around. The partners bought many somewhat extravagent gifts. They put all of them in the meeting room. Numbers were pulled and whoever’s number was picked got to go into the meeting room and choose a gift. We guessed that the numbers went by how long you had been employed. I got a large blue and white vase . Part of the sticker was still on it and I could see it came from Bloomingdales. I still have it on my porch. I remember riding home on the train carrying it.

Anyway, the whole office gift thing is ridiculous and puts pressure on everyone. I most appreciated my year end bonus.

And I want to add that you are very thoughtful, Pal, to put so much thought into your gifts.

When I worked we had a secret Santa and each department did their own. Aside from that I didn't give gifts to anyone including my assistant and certainly not to my boss. They didn't pay me enough to do so. Call me Scrooge but I actually can't believe that people do this.

Pal, give the nicest combo of bag and ornament to the people who are appreciative and don't fret about the rest.

I think part of the reason that some of the end product at places like $ store are so terrible (and so cheap) is because they don't put any effort or $ into the design of the products. If a gift bag has a handle and a picture of Santa then it's all good.

I would bow out of ALL group gifts and give everyone a card announcing your donation of X dollars to (insert worthy, workplace related cause here) in honor of the stellar staff with whom you have the privilege to work.

If you have special friends who deserve a separate gift, either have them sent directly to the recipients or meet them for a drink privately and give them there. I can’t stand office politics and refuse to be extorted.

Your gifts and the thought your putting into them...how nice and thoughtful of you. That's VERY stressful. Trying to keep up the quality of gift giving...very difficult. I did buy generic gift bags at the Dollar Tree to keep on hand. The DT ones I believe are left over stock they get discounted, hence the ugly blue X-mas bags. I'm just happy to spend the money on the gift, not the bag. :0)

Wow, this nonsense is, to me, a ('nother) sign of bad management. So many opportunities for ill will.

I'm glad I have never been in this situation. Most of my career was for large firms where the *only* thing that happened was a holiday party, usually entirely optional (having 35,000 employees helps with that.) No gift giving in any direction. Bonuses in investment banking far exceed salaries so it's an entirely different culture and no one is raising funds to compensate employees even in support positions.

Even now at our small firm none of this occurs. We have an annual party in January (when calendars are clearer). It is not seated and often involves an activity. We all like each other, so that helps.

Does everyone in your position give these gifts and spend about what you do? If so, you are stuck. I am sure your standards are too high, though, and everyone will love what you have chosen.

But my bigger question is: "Is this bag cheaper because it is so ugly, or is it so ugly because it is cheap?" In other words is it ugly because that is what people shopping at that price point really like? Or is it just what they are stuck with. I can't help but think it would be a little bit of both.

I have often wondered about this very thing. It had to have been designed by someone, it doesn't just appear. And people in design have pretty good taste, I think. Target is one of the rare places where I see tasteful things that are also inexpensive.

I love Micheal's burlap sacks and brown paper small gift bags and a set of holiday stamps or ribbons and a glue gun used to embellish them. I am able to make affordable and cute gift bags for my thirty students to give their parents gifts in for just cents per person.

I never really minded buying the gifts for the private office. When I started it was 5 people excluding myself and everyone but me and the boss, who were just starting, were long time employees. Now it's eight, and the overall culture has changed.

I still don't mind doing it, and most of the people appreciate it. But for example, (we had our holiday gathering already, so no one got anything from me yet), I saw one of the employees for the first time in 2023 last Friday, and one of the others for the second time ever. But I don't feel like I can leave them out.

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At the institutional place, the giving of the money to the two secretary-assistants has been a long time thing, completely elective, completely open ended as to how much. And historically there were a couple cheapskates in the department who would give $5. (They were also the types who would always short how much they threw in when paying for the dinner. Everybody knew it, everybody just dealt with it). Anyway, they retired, and the whole balance got upset when a new faculty was hired. Her husband works in Manhattan, she is used to North Jersey/NYC prices, and well, she's bougie. She contributed $100 to the pot for the FT secretary the first year she was here, thinking that was probably customary and it really threw the whole ecological balance out of whack. And really it is a matter of the secretary doing less, and less, and less, and less as time goes by. She's coasting to retirement. And it's a union job. I can't complain about having a union job myself, it has it's benefits and protections. But it also protects people like this who get a paycheck for doing absolutely nothing except showing up in the morning. You would almost have to murder someone and defile the corpse publicly to get fired from a job in her position.

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I think part of the esthetic thing with the bags and gift paper and such is Where it is designed. I think a lot of the better looking stuff is designed in America although it may be produced overseas, while the ugly looking stuff is designed and produced in a different culture. Something that can be sold at a fractional price like this probably has no part of the process at all taking place in America.

The gift-giving thing in your office is nuts. I'd want to opt out, but I suspect you're in too deep for that now.

"Is this bag cheaper because it is so ugly, or is it so ugly because it is cheap?"

I've thought about this a lot, mostly when it comes to colors used in clothes. Ugly colors like pale blue and peach and bandaid or lurid brights. Is that dye less expensive? Same with ugly house colors, especially siding/trim combos. They could have had nice colors for the same price.

Here is something that is part of my dilemma and it is probably something very foreign to most people in this forum.

I do not own a car. I have not owned a car in about 30 years. I used to drive at least a few times a year when my parents were alive, but I have not driven, not once, since sometime in 2018. And now I am at a point where I think it would be a bad idea for me to drive in the urban environment I live in. I do keep a driver's license. My SO has not had a drivers license in 28 years.

This is usually not a problem. But Philadelphia is not quite Manhattan. The Michael's near me has closed. The Target near me has closed. The nearest Michaels and the nearest big Target are a couple miles away. I walk a couple miles a day anyway, it's not the walking. But they are not particularly convenient to any single mode of public transport, and I don't feel like taking two different modes of public transport or walking four miles round trip to get a few boxes. It would be a much better use of my time to just buy the $8 ones.

Probably 350 days a year not driving has no negative effect on my life. Maybe 15 days a year it is a miserable PITA. This is one of those things that would be a non-issue if I were still a car owner.

How is the Uber/Lyft situation in Philadelphia? That might be an option for the days a vehicle would come in handy. And still cheaper than parking, insurance and gas. I know that in some places it's difficult to find rides or the drivers are sketchy.

Lots of good suggestions here. One personal note, though. I have very dear friends (went through school with the wife) who send a card saying a donation was made in my honor to one of their charities. We stopped exhchanging gifts when we graduated from college which was almost 50 years ago. We still keep in close touch and get together when we can now that we live in different states. I am always a bit put off by their donation card because we no longer exchange gifts, because it is not a charity I would choose to give to, and because...what is the point? They get their deduction and I guess they feel good about it, but it seems a bit self-serving to me. That may sound unfair, but they really could just make their donation without attaching my name and the names of many others, I presume, in any way. Since they are on the board of said charity, it would be easy for them to support it without making such a point of it to us. I will not, however, let them know that I wish they would stop. They are kind people and I would never do anything to hurt their feelings.

Pal, I am sure your colleagues will be enormously pleased with your gifts. It is very generous of you and you put so much thought into everything you do. I hope you have a lovely holiday celebration and season.

ps. I do feel appropriately guilty about my feelings on this subject.

I see your point, Cyn.

I'm sorry Palimpsest. It's clear you started it out of the kindness of your heart, and now it's taken on a life of its own a bit. The not driving thing does complicate it too. I love some of the gift bag ideas above, but again you need to see those things to know if they are nice, or look like left-over rejects from the Dollar Store.

I know this is such a pain for you to deal with, Pal, but I have to tell you I have been greatly entertained by this post and your musings! Sounds like your office could be a TV show!

I admire Pal for their dedication and creativity in office gift giving.

As an employer, we discourage gift exchanges in the work environment because of the potential drama it can cause. If people want to exchange gifts outside of work that is fine. We host a party for our employees. It is held in a casual restaurant that has great food. There are lots of games and prizes and we try to make sure everyone wins something. We try very hard to make the holidays stress free for our employees and at the same time strengthen team building.

House Shaped Box

Another choice, but unsure about the size.

THIS

My experience with gift bags is that the better quality last MUCH longer and are much more "gift worthy"... last year and the year before I said I would *never* buy another Target bag. They always fall apart ... but yes, I did get some more again this year lol.

I like Caspari bags but the designs are limited. I also got some Rifle Paper gift bags this year and they seem pretty good though I haven't actually filled them yet.

I also do not drive and so I usually order Caspari direct but they also carry them on Am-z-n and my local Wegmans usually has a few designs. These are bags that have been reused by my entire family for the last 4 yr ... and the non-holiday floral bags exchange hands many times through the year. Yeah, they cost about $6 but with that kind of reuse capacity, I don't care.

As for your gifts to coworkers, I am sure they are appreciated no matter how you wrap and deliver them! I am curious (as I am still assembling gifts for my coworkers) what is your standard gift for all?

The office politics you describe are disturbing ... I haven't experienced anything like it. All I can do is say I am sorry you have to deal with it!

Pal, do all these people give you something too? If so, this might be your way out. Talk to each privately that the situation has changed and is just not manageable. They might be relieved to opt out too.

I like the worker who opted out and expressed clearly why.

It seems like what started out as manageable and fun turned into something entirely different.

Is your job at stake if you don’t continue?

It gives me a headache thinking about you giving gifts to do many people that you don’t see or even know well.

Then, I feel for you caring so much about the gift bag. From your descriptions of these people, I’m guessing they would not care about the bag.

There are always people who go the extra mile, Pal surpass it!

What would happen if you just stopped?

What a dilemma - my workplace makes such things entirely optional, and no grief is given for not participating, and I rarely do. I think it helps that it's a very relaxed workplace, and I'm old enough to be a parent, or even grandparent to most of my coworkers - they give me lots of leeway for being a geezer 😄

FWIW, Michaels and Joann Fabrics have online ordering and delivery. Same with Walmart and Target, both of which will ship your order same day if you get it in early enough.

Pal, reading this actually brought on a physical reaction in me to this type of office environment, one I lived and it almost did me in. Mtn hit the nail on the head. Poor management, bad management, people in managerial positions that they have no business being in. It sounds like a no win situation - someone isn't going to like something which in the spirit of Christmas and gift-giving is ridiculous. The time and effort you are putting in along with all the angst and caring to do the right thing is commendable but my guess won't be appreciated. So it's not perfect this year, it's the thought that counts. You tried your best. Feel good about the person you are and know that these characters are not worth fretting over.

In answer to various questions:

I give the one office hand blown Christmas tree ornaments. My criteria over the years has been that the glass loop has to be part of the ornament, no metal cap inserted.

In general this thing has gotten relatively more expensive, outstripping inflation a little bit, and the problem is that I have been doing it for so long, that the less expensive ones were fine 20 years ago, but there is a sameness to those, so what I have been giving over time has been going up a bit in quality and more than a little bit in price. And I want them all to be the same (except for my boss and his wife, one of them is different).

My usual local source has stopped getting really nice ones because he has to charge too much (and he also gets in a larger stock of what he calls ugly gimmicky ornaments because they do sell. Plastic sexy mermen and stuff like that :-I )

My usual online source, you either have to jump on them Immediately when the catalog comes or the less expensive ones sell out, and then you are looking at $35-40 each and up. Or, wait until after the holidays and buy them discounted. I did not do that last January because I was not sure I would still be working there this December.

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This is not a corporate environment. Working in a smallish clinical environment is completely different from a corporate environment it sounds like, and there are a lot of things that are more of a microcosm with less external controls than a department in a corporate environment may have. Personalities and politics and toxicities can loom large.

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In the academic environment there is usually no regular gift giving except for the cash to the secretary. Every once in a while someone will set up a Secret Santa/Pollyanna and people will participate in that. This year someone did, and it was someone who is very hard to say no to. So people did it. It was fine, it's only one gift and you had to give a list. I lucked out I got someone I have known for years and is easy. Stuff like this does not bother me that much.

I think the money thing is trashy. I always have, and it's even worse because the individual doesn't deserve it.

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In the office where I give the ornaments, we get bonuses and the boss takes us out to dinner once a year. It's a command performance, but it used to be fun before the 2nd wife came on the scene. It's still relatively easy to get through. The staff chip in and buy the boss a pretty nice present, and they chip in and buy me something small and useful. I am spending more on them than they are on me. That's fine, I have never thought that was the point.

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I did work in an office where the boss might take the staff out or might not, never gave any bonuses even though she was making money hand over fist from everyone else's efforts and sometimes they would try to have a gift exchange. I was usually able to opt out because I was only there once a week.

However, since I live with a former pastry chef, I did take in a bunch of Christmas cookies for the first couple years I worked there. One year something happened and my SO was not able to do a big production baking.

The boss in that office said in January "Hey I think you owe the office some cookies, (haha) what happened?" Except that she was totally serious. She wanted those cookies. I could bring them for Valentine's day or something. Well, that was the end of that, I never did that again.

The odd thing is, that more than once acquaintance has said things like this over the years. We have done things over and over without any reciprocation at all (and with none necessarily expected) and then one year it doesn't happen and we get called out for not doing what is expected.

One other thing about deliveries. I get nothing delivered to my front door. Everything gets stolen. There is a torn open Amazon box on my block every day. There are doorbell camera shots of people stealing packages and messages to people "I found your empty box/your ripped open box of stuff in front of my house" on Facebook every day. I have to get everything either delivered to my workplace where I am only once a week, or to SO's workplace. And at that workplace there are some rumblings that they will no longer be able to receive personal packages because the volume is so great. Because anyone who lives in a non-doorman building, or in a building with a completely secured mailroom is dealing with the same issues of porch piracy.

"Is this bag cheaper because it is so ugly, or is it so ugly because it is cheap?"

I have the same question about quilts. They are usually finely crafted and represent many hours of work, and yet the.y are almost always ugly— with hideous colors and fabrics. A lot of quilting fabric is purchased in bulk in cut squares and there is a very wide variety of fabrics contained in a single bundle. The fabric is not expensive, certainly not when compared to the value of the quilter’s time. So why then do they use the green / orange / black floral squares and the yellow / purple / brown prints? Are they so thrifty they want to use every scrap of material in the bundle? Are they color blind? Is the fabric cheap because they are the ugly patterns no one bought? Or is cheap fabric just plug ugly?

All my life I have seen quilts for sale at shops and craft fairs and have been given them by well meaning relatives I love dearly and I just can’t fathom it. ”Ugly quilt” should be an oxymorom.

Sorry Pal…I feel your pain 😎 I stock up on plain brown kraft paper gift bags wherever I see them on sale and mark the (seasonal) occasion with the choice of ribbon.

Yes my mother once won an afghan that was dayglo orange, kelly green and variegated brown and white.

I am holding out for boxes mostly because the people with the largest number of ornaments say they store them in the boxes with the year written on them

That's sweet, Pal -- I am glad your coworkers appreciate them so much! It would make me want to put in a little extra effort also.

Have you tried the Paper Source?

I can only imagine the frustration you must be feeling Pal. I admire you continuing to recognize your co-workers at the holidays for so many years. I also feel there has been a steady decline in common courtesy in our society, so I'm not surprised you're seeing these negative changes in the staff. I'm trying to adjust to people who are either oblivious or just plain inconsiderate. I see it in the grocery stores, on the roads, in my personal life when emails/calls/texts are randomly ignored or through the ways family members (not my immediate family) seem to assume that some relatives exist to handle all the heavy lifting when life events occur. But I believe you are someone with very high personal standards and probably very uncomfortable presenting anyone with something cheap or slipshod. So for this year, at least, I think you should just do the best you are comfortable with and then reconsider in the new year. I will also add, though, that I bet people appreciate your kindness and generosity more than you know or they are probably able to express.

ETA: Maybe we should start a separate thread on gift wrap tips/ideas?

The Dollar Store has inexpensive gift bags. Did I read it right that you gift your boss a gift too? I guess it’s too late for this year, but start telling people this year (and forward) gift bonanza will be your last.

Dollar tree does have nice gift bags but the good ones go fast.

They are not as nice as the ones I might find at Marshalls, some of them anyway, and those go fast too..

I wish I had a creative idea for eiither your box or cackling receptionist extortion dilemma but I don't. So, I'll share some invaluable advice I once received: make sure all your kitchen lighting is at least 4,000K, LEDs. Hope that helps?

Bless your heart for trying to spread some cheer this month, though.

Feel good about the person you are

I do want to clarify, that other than the weird situation that for a couple years in a row I ended up buying a gift for someone who was through the revolving door of that position in the office in short order, I really don't mind the gift giving, even then I didn't really mind it.

I was just in a mood this year about those people who, through no fault of their own, I didn't really know because they did not like working there enough to stick around. If they were there at Christmas, they contributed to my gift too.

What I think I am annoyed about right now, is that it really would have just been better to do exactly what I always did, which is buy the same thing for everybody at the same place, that would come in it's own box for free, and be once and done. That, rather than trying to put people in a hierarchy of more deserving or less deserving. I would have saved time and stress, and in all likelihood money, because It would have been done and I would not have been jumping through a bunch of hoops to compensate for how things have played out.

The only person I resent giving a gift to is that single secretary, and Everybody does, except her/our supervisor who for whatever reason thinks she's great.

Maybe when you decide to retire the "single secretary" job, you can givce her a lump of coal in a box.

I feel for you, and I can see how they look forward to getting your gift each year. It was a lovely tradition for your to start. That said, I would rather do draw a name or Secret Santa for one than currently go through this each year.

While I have a car, everything is miles away, so I order almost everything. We don't have porch pirates in our area, and we are almost always home to bring in the box(es) when they are delivered. What you have to go through would drive me nuts.

Pal, I wish you and yours a wonderful holiday season. You are such a good guy, this is all so thoughtful, and I hope giving the gifts at the party brings you good cheer!