Perhaps you want to add festive elements beyond a traditional company holiday party, or your office, like so many others, doesn’t have the cash for a big event. Here are some easy ideas to add festive fun to your workplace, without having to break the budget.

1. Secret Santa

It’s no secret why Secret Santa is popular. It’s a chance for everyone participating to receive a nice treat and to have a chance to treat someone else. Be sure to establish clear rules before your Secret Santa begins, like a maximum and minimum amount to spend. You might want to limit participation to those who want to participate, rather than automatically including everyone in your office. Announcing the fact that each person’s Santa will be revealed at the end can help keep everyone honest (and limit anyone’s disappointment).

The classic Secret Santa is a gift exchanged at a particular time. A more festive option is to have the Santa spread the cheer over a greater portion of the holiday season. Co-workers can leave decorations, tasty treats, cards, or even cheery notes as surprises over the week or weeks leading up to the gift exchange. Secret Santa can be a good way for co-workers to get to know each other better. If your workplace has a number of employees participating, you might even want to consider posting a list in a staff area. Each employee in the Secret Santa can list a few of their likes and dislikes, hobbies, or favourite sports teams in order to make shopping easier for their Secret Santa.

2. White Elephant Gift Exchanges

Whatever you call them, exchanges of random gifts can be fun. Set an amount (maximum and minimum) each person should spend on an anonymous gift. Then, at the scheduled day and time, gifts are distributed. How they’re distributed is often where the fun comes in. There are many variations to this game. You can have everyone draw numbers to decide the order people get to select gifts. People can be given an option to swap gifts with others or pass gifts around a circle until music stops.

Keep in mind that employees might not have the same expectations on what is an appropriate gift for work. Be sure to set some ground rules so that one person doesn’t bring in a lovely gift basket only to receive a used item or a gift that is too naughty for the workplace. The gift exchange should be a fun experience for everyone. If you have concerns about employee participation, you might even consider having a spare gift on hand, in case someone looks like they’ll be left empty-handed.

3. Wine-o-Survivor

In this game, anyone who wants to play brings in wine (of a certain value) and then each day names are drawn to eliminate people from the game. At the end, the winner (or winners) are the people who haven’t been eliminated. They get to take home the collection of wine. Instead of wine, your office could have people bring in other types of alcohol, chocolate, or other gift items. Game variations include adding drawings of the eliminated to give them a chance to be rescued and returned to the game. Co-workers could form alliances to agree to share if one of them wins. The daily drawing can add a bit of excitement to the workplace and give even those people who aren’t participating a chance to thrill in the excitement.

4. Biscuit Exchange

For those who love the holidays and baking, a biscuit exchange can be delightful. Each co-worker who chooses to participate bakes a certain number of biscuits (or other type of baked sweets) so that they can exchange them. This way, each person only has to bake one type of treat but gets to take home a great variety of biscuits to enjoy throughout the holidays.

5. Potluck

Group office meals where everyone brings something different are a classic way to enjoy a great time and good food on a budget. Create a list so that your co-workers can sign up. This helps to ensure there won’t be a lot of duplicated dishes. It can also help to divide the list by category so that people sign up for starters, sides, desserts, beverages and main dishes. This can save your potluck from consisting of 9 pasta salads and 23 baked potatoes. 

Games are a great way to get your teams having fun and working together. Want to forge better working relationships and teamwork? Contact Glasscubes today and find out more about our team collaboration software.<

Glasscubes is a user-friendly collaboration software for teams. Connect everyone that you work with in an online workspace that improves the way you share files, manage projects and communicate with each other.

For more information, contact us by calling +44 (0)20 3274 2310 or email us at enquiries@glasscubes.com

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