Funny Coworker Gifts: Secret Santa and White Elephant Picks by Budget
Todd Winfield writes the HR-Approved workplace humor series.
There's a moment at every office gift exchange where someone unwraps a mug, says 'oh, nice,' and puts it down. It goes in a drawer that night. By February it's in the communal cupboard with the other eleven mugs.
Then there's the other moment, the one where somebody reads the cover, laughs out loud, and immediately shows the person next to them. That gift gets kept. Not because it cost more, but because it proved somebody had been paying attention.
Why most office gifts get forgotten
A generic gift says I had to get you something. A specific one says I know what your day actually looks like.
Your coworkers have been complaining to you all year, usually about the same three things. The meetings with no agenda. The person who replies-all. The thing they wanted to say in the standup and didn't. All of that is free market research and almost nobody uses it.
That's the whole method here. Stop shopping by category and think about what the person has actually said out loud in the last six months. Then give them something that names it.
Matched to the complaint
That meeting could have been an email.
HR Approved Corporate Sarcasm: A 365-Day Office Humor Desk Companion
A page a day, sitting next to their monitor for a year. It's the right gift for the person who lives at a desk and treats the calendar as a personal enemy. The humor points at the job, never at the reader.
I said 'happy to help' and I meant something else entirely.
HR-Approved Ways to Say Things I Can't Say Out Loud at Work
For the relentlessly diplomatic one. The person who writes 'great question' to the same question for the fourth time that week and has never once let it show. The book runs the internal monologue next to the professional translation, which is exactly the gap they live in.
I'm fine. Everything's fine.
HR Approved Corporate Therapy: A Funny Guide to Workplace Stress & Pretending to Be Fine
Somebody on your floor has quietly absorbed more than their share this year, and everyone knows who. The subtitle does the work here. They'll recognize themselves before they finish the cover.
How is this person employed here?
HR Approved Ways to Tell Co-Workers They're Stupid
Our most-reviewed title, and it only works in one direction. Between peers it's solidarity. From a manager to their report it's a disciplinary meeting. You're a peer, so this is yours to give.
Nobody talks any more since we went hybrid.
This or That? HR Approved Edition or Would You Rather? HR Approved Edition
Small talk is the first thing a hybrid team loses, because nobody schedules it. Both of these are playable in the first three minutes of a Monday standup. Give one to the person who keeps trying to restart the conversation on their own.
They promoted me and handed me nothing.
HR Approved Ways to Lead Without Losing Your Mind
For the coworker who became a team lead this year and has been quietly drowning since. It's 114 pages of scripts: the thing you want to say, and the version you can actually send. Seven chapters, including one on what to say when you're furious.
I have no idea what any of these people are talking about.
Finance Bro, Explained
Only right if you work in finance, consulting or accounting. It decodes what analysts say versus what they mean. Wrong gift almost anywhere else, which is precisely why it lands so hard in the right office.
I've stopped expecting people to behave reasonably.
Office Survival Explained by Cats
The same office observations as the rest of the range, filtered through animals. Cats absorb any edge a joke might have, which makes this the safest thing we publish and the right call when the complaint is broad rather than specific.
I cover for everyone and nobody covers for me.
The HR Approved Coworker Coupon Book
Fifty tear-out coupons whose humor points squarely at management. It works between coworkers for the same reason it fails as a gift from a boss.
I need to stop letting this place get to me.
How to Be a Corporate Monk
The closest thing in the range to an actual read, rather than something to flip through. Good for the coworker who finishes books instead of leaving them on the desk.
I'm dreading the Christmas party.
HR Approved Office Holiday Party Survival Guide
Secret Santa, awkward small talk, that one coworker. Hand it over at the party itself and the joke is immediate rather than something they reach in February.
Non-book gifts that do the same job
The method doesn't only apply to books. Roughly half your colleagues won't read a humor book, and pretending otherwise wastes your money. These work for the same reason: each one answers a complaint you've actually heard.
My neck is killing me.
A laptop riser or phone stand. Unglamorous, used every single day, and the most-used gift on this page.
These pens are terrible.
A genuinely good pen, one with some weight to it. People keep good pens for years and quietly remember who gave it to them. The cheap ones are worse than nothing.
My hands are destroyed.
Good hand cream. Sounds odd until you work in a clinic, salon, kitchen or workshop where people wash their hands thirty times a shift. Then it's the best gift here and it isn't close.
There's nothing alive in this building.
A pothos or ZZ plant. Survives fluorescent light, irregular watering, and three weeks of annual leave. Avoid succulents; they die in offices and then people feel guilty about it.
The coffee here is a war crime.
A bag from one named local roaster. The specificity is what makes it feel chosen rather than ordered.
If you work somewhere hands-on rather than desk-based, the riser and the hand cream beat every book on this page. Buy accordingly.
What actually wins white elephant
White elephant is a different game and most people play it wrong.
Your gift doesn't need to be good. It needs to be stolen. People choose from across the room based on what they can see, which means a loud cover beats a thoughtful one and a flat rectangle loses to something with shape.
So wrap it badly on purpose, or don't wrap it at all. The gifts that get stolen three times are the ones people can identify from their chair.
From our range the covers that read at distance are Office Survival Explained by Cats and Would You Rather? HR Approved Edition. Both are bright enough to be spotted from the far end of a conference table, which is the only design criterion that matters in this particular game.
For someone you barely know
You drew a name from a different floor. You know their first name and that they have a bike. You have no complaint to work from, so fall back on the one thing you definitely share: the building, the systems, and the meetings. Not their appearance, not their habits, not a hobby you're guessing at.
HR Approved Dad Jokes is the safest thing we make: nobody in recorded history has been offended by a dad joke. This or That has the added advantage of being playable at the party, which covers the conversation you were also dreading.
For someone leaving
People get this one wrong by being too sentimental. If they're leaving on good terms, funny travels better than heartfelt, because it's easier to receive in front of a room.
Ways to Tell Co-Workers They're Stupid works here because the joke is now retrospective and shared. If they're leaving because the job ground them down, Corporate Therapy lands better.
Either way, get everyone to sign the inside cover. That's the part they keep.
What to skip
Anything about their performance. Ways to Say 'Do Better' Without Drama is a book we publish and it's a bad coworker gift: the title reads as a note about their work, even coming from a peer. Same goes for any productivity book. Nobody wants to unwrap homework.
Novelty mugs. Every desk in this building already has four. The single most-given and least-wanted office gift there is.
Anything about their body, their age, their relationship status or their drinking. Obvious, and it still happens every December.
Food, when you don't know their diet. Lovely for someone whose allergies you've checked, genuinely awkward otherwise.
If you're buying for your team rather than for a peer, the direction changes everything: we wrote that up separately in funny gifts for employees from a boss.
The test, before you buy
Would you be comfortable if they opened it in front of everyone?
Because they will. Every office gift is opened in public, usually in a semicircle, usually while someone films it. Anything that only works one-to-one is the wrong gift for this occasion.
The corollary: the joke has to be about the job, not about the person. Meetings, inboxes and Mondays are fair game. Their personality isn't.
Questions people actually ask
How much should you spend on a coworker Secret Santa?
Spend whatever cap your office set, and don't go over it. Overspending is the most common mistake and it quietly embarrasses the person who drew your name.
What's the difference between Secret Santa and white elephant?
Secret Santa means you draw one name and buy for that person. White elephant means everyone brings one unnamed gift and people take turns choosing or stealing from a pile. Secret Santa rewards knowing the person; white elephant rewards a gift that looks good from a distance.
Is it OK to give a funny gift to a coworker?
Yes, when the joke is about the job rather than about them. The shared misery of a Monday is fair. Their habits, body or private life are not.
What do you get a coworker you barely know?
Something about the shared experience of working there, because that's the only thing you can be certain you have in common. Avoid anything that assumes a hobby, a diet, or a sense of humor you haven't seen.
Can you give a gag gift at a work Christmas party?
Usually, provided it's clean. Profanity, anything at someone's expense, and anything alcohol-related are the three that most often go wrong.
Start here
Think about the last thing this person complained to you about. If it was meetings, give them Corporate Sarcasm. If it was a colleague, Ways to Tell Co-Workers They're Stupid. If they haven't complained about anything, you don't know them well enough yet: give them Dad Jokes and start listening.