12/03/2006

It's a secret ...

Office gift exchanges offer fun at the holidays

By
Record-Eagle staff writer

Record-Eagle/Jan-Michael Stump
Doug Coone will be participating in his office Secret Santa gift exchange for the second year. Other co-workers at the AAA Traverse City Office on U.S. 31 are, from left, Erin Blankenship, Jean Cummings, Mitzi Gibbard and Doreen Olszewski.

Erin Blankenship still can remember the excitement of "Secret Santa” games at Old Mission Elementary School.

"We'd put things in people's cubbies,” she recalled of her classmates' clumsy efforts to hide gifts for each other.

Although she's all grown up and has traded her school cubby for an office cubicle, Blankenship is helping to keep the spirit of secret giving alive as "head Santa” at the Traverse City AAA office, one of dozens of area workplaces where employees are participating in Secret Santa gift exchanges this holiday season.

A Christmas ritual, Secret Santa games help bring employees closer together and heighten the fun of the season in office settings. At AAA, where the touring, travel, sales and claims departments often work independently, it's a way to cross lines — both real and figurative — said Blankenship, a 27-year-old claims support assistant.

"Other than our Christmas party, we don't get together and hang out,” she said. "So this is a way to get to know other people. We all don't work directly in contact with each other. That's what's fun about it. I could get somebody who's way across the office that I don't know very well.”

Like many other Secret Santa games, AAA's starts with a drawing in November. After choosing a name, participating employees leave one gift a week for their co-worker between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

With a limit of $5 per gift, Blankenship said the game is as much about the fun of hiding identities as it is about giving and receiving presents. Because of the office layout, Secret Santas often have to resort to leaving gifts in the employee lounge or recruiting co-workers to deliver them.

"We're in an open office, so that's the fun part of it — trying to keep it hidden,” she said. "People that aren't playing have to kind of keep their mouths shut. It's very secretive. And since everybody watches what a person opens, you have to be careful what you get each other.”

Remaining secret is even tougher for employees of Munson Healthcare's Corporate Communications department, who each have to sneak a gift with an informal limit of $15-$20 into the annual Christmas party and then try to guess who their Santa is. The small staff of 11 not only work closely together, but sometimes shop together at the hospital's gift shop and twice-annual jewelry sale, said "holiday planner” Meghan Whinnery.

"(Depending) on who you draw, you're probably going to get jewelry from that sale,” she said.

Then again, knowing each other well makes it easy to give gifts with a personal touch, like the framed collage a co-worker and Munson graphics designer created just for Whinnery.

"Somehow he got from my family a picture of my grandmother and me dancing,” she said. "He went to the (Grand Traverse) Pavilions, where my grandmother lived, and had her handwrite a little note, 'Meghan, the racy dancer.' It was the most touching, unique, thoughtful gift. I'll always have it to remember her by and I'll always remember my co-worker.”

About half of AAA's 35 office employees are taking part in the Secret Santa game this year, Blankenship said. For the second year in a row, life and health insurance agent Doug Coone is the sole male player.

"Christmas has always been a big thing for me and for my family,” said Coone, who bears a striking resemblance to Santa Claus and plays the jolly old elf for several area non-profit charities.

While his wife does most of the couple's Christmas shopping every year, Coone, 52, said he selects his Secret Santa gifts and builds on a theme each of the four weeks. Usually it's easier for men to figure out what to buy female co-workers than the other way around, he added. But this year he's making it simple for his Secret Santa: He and his wife are expecting the sixth addition to their blended family soon.

"If I get four bundles of diapers over the next four weeks, I'd be thrilled,” he said.

Not everybody is as eager to participate in Secret Santa games, especially with people they don't know well. Though few want to be seen as "Grinches,” many of those who opt out of voluntary office exchanges say that adding one more thing to their to-do list is an unwelcome obligation at an already hectic time of year. Some cite financial reasons — even small gifts can be a burden on strained holiday budgets — while others complain that the effort they put into their Secret Santa gifts is rarely reciprocated.

But in an age when people often spend more time at work than they do with their families, Whinnery said the Secret Santa exchange is more about friendship than it is about frivolity.

"The people you work with every day, they become a second family,” she said. "It is nice to recognize the friendships you have with these people and the appreciation you have for each other.”

At Kingsley Elementary School, the Secret Santa exchange is one of the highlights of the year, secretary Vonnie Seidel said.

"It's not something you have to spend a lot of money on,” said Seidel, who has coordinated the game for about 12 years. "You can spend as much or as little as you would like.”

This year about 30 of the school's 58 employees will participate in the game, which takes place every day the week before Christmas break and culminates with a snack buffet where Secret Santas are revealed, she said. While gifts run the gamut from simple to involved, innocent to risque, creativity is the common theme.

"We have some very creative people on our staff who do poetry,” she said. "They'll write a poem about somebody and include graphics or pictures with it. They'll cut out beautiful bodies of women and put faces of staff people on them. They've decorated a whole wall of the teacher's lounge for someone using words cut out from magazines so no one recognizes their writing.”

To help spark imagination, each day has a theme like "Snowman Surprise” or "Red and Green.” And if they're still stuck for ideas, Secret Santas can consult a binder of questionnaires filled out by employees detailing their personal preferences.

Memorable gifts have included a bra cup filled with treats for "Fill A Cup Day” and a black see-through negligee for "White Elephant Day,” Seidel said.

"Nobody's ever gone to the extreme of being mean or hurtful,” she said. "Sometimes people get offended, but they still play knowing it's in the name of fun. They take it in good humor and hope that that person doesn't get their name again.

"Usually the things are so nice or well-presented you want to say thanks. We've even had people get their Secret Santa a gift on the last day because they've liked their things so much.”

Having fun with the game is what Secret Santa is all about, said Sheila Lowe.

"Everyone assumes Secret Santa is a sweetsy-nicey thing, but it doesn't have to be,” said Lowe, director of new construction for Coldwell Banker Schmidt Realtors in Traverse City. "It can be playful, too. Like bread without a crust.”

That's what Lowe got one year — along with an empty pack of gum and a bouquet of flower stems — from a Secret Santa where she used to work.

"I had mushroom hunted and done 4-H work with him, so he knew it would be funny to me,” she said.