Is Santa Clause coming to town? You heard that right! With this tradition of Secret Santa’s emerging in Bengaluru, many offices held Christmas sessions, competitions and give away that will melt your heart. Everyone got their own ‘'Secret Santa’s’ just to spread some holiday cheers! This organisation takes their Christmas decoration competition to another level.
Sukanya Gunalan, an HR Recruiter at Allegis group says, “So, we started off playing Christmas games a week ago. Each day was a gift exchange and we were given tasks where the whole floor was participating. It was indeed a stress buster for everyone. Gifts that we used to exchange were customised beard mugs for the guys, and other things related to beard and for the girls, there were flowers, teddies, and mugs. We had bay competitions with 24 teams and 24 themes as well. We got the first place as it was a tie between ours another team and our theme was ‘best out of waste’, so we used waste products to make Christmassy decorations for our bay.”
Our theme was ‘best out of waste’, so we used waste products to make christmas decorations for our bay , Sukanya Gunalan Hr recruiter
As they say, it doesn’t matter how little the gifts cost but it’s the thought that counts. Something similar happened in Sumit Kumar’s workplace. Sumit, a senior associate at a health care organisation, says, “We had seven days of Christmas activities at our office where we shared quotes, cards, flowers, and chocolates. We just wanted to encourage each other by surprising each other with small gifts because it’s the thought that counts not the quality of the gift. This time was full of fun and joy and we were given task like wearing a monkey cap for the whole day in the office, just a fun way of bonding with each other.”
But, what better than being a ‘Secret Santa’ for the kids who don’t have anything? The radio channel, Indigo 91.9 has kept their tradition of the ‘Wishing Tree’ where they encourage people to fulfil the wishes of the kids at the orphanage. Ashwin Manjunath from Indigo elaborates, “The ‘Wishing Tree’ in our office has the name tags of all the underprivileged kids that sends a list of wishes for each kid. Our radio jockeys announced it on the station and we open the Christmas tree up for anyone who wants to come and donate a gift to the kids from the orphanage.
After the tree is filled and all the kids got their wishes, the RJs go to these NGO’s and handover gifts to these children. In a way, the donors become a Secret Santa for these kids and we instead of giving each other gifts try to use the festival for a greater cause.” We ask these professionals what was the gift that was the most trending and innovative. Hemani Mohan who works in an HR firm says, “Things like beer and wine glasses and feng shui items for the house were most popular at the Secret Santa exchange this year.”
