Christmas Gifts for Office Staff When Everybody Has to Like the Same Thing | Bluegrass Gifts

The Gift That Never Leaves the Break Room

Most Christmas gifts for office staff fail the same quiet way. The cookie tin lands on the break room table, the coworker who's off sugar passes, the one with the nut allergy passes, and in January somebody tips the last broken pieces into the trash. Nobody was ungrateful. The gift just didn't fit the people.

The best Christmas gifts for office staff are one small, useful gift for everybody, at one budget per person, that goes home and doesn't depend on diet, drink or a desk. Buy it as a batch with two spares, add a handwritten line, and hand it out in person the week before the break.

Our honest suggestion is one bag of Jingle Bell Jammies wax melts, a Christmas gift for office staff that goes home with them. It smells of cinnamon, clove, evergreen and gingerbread latte, and we pour it by hand in our Kentucky shop. It isn't food, isn't alcohol and needs no desk. The rest of this page is the whole plan, whatever you end up buying.

What people get wrong about the office gift is thinking it has to impress. It doesn't. It has to be fair, it has to fit everybody, and it has to say thank you without making anyone open it in front of the whole room. Do those three things and it gets remembered as part of a good year. Try too hard and it becomes the year of the fruitcake.

What Christmas Gifts for Office Staff Have to Get Past

Before you fall for any gift, run it through this filter. Each line stands for one person on staff the wrong gift quietly leaves out.

• No food. Allergies, diets, religious rules, a doctor's orders. You will not know all of them, and you shouldn't have to ask.
• No alcohol. Some people don't drink, some can't, and a bottle from the boss is a hard message to take back.
• No desk required. The warehouse crew, the drivers, the techs in the field and the people who work from home all get left out by a desk gadget.
• No sizes, no skin types, no logo. Clothes need a size, lotion a skin type, and a jacket with the company logo is a uniform, not a present.
• Nothing that assumes the holiday. If someone on staff doesn't celebrate Christmas, the gift should still work for them with a different card.

What gets through is something small and useful that goes home, gets used up instead of collecting dust, and looks like a gift without much wrapping. Wax melts pass every line. The one honest risk is scent: a few people don't want fragrance in the house, and not everybody owns a warmer. We don't sell warmers, but if the budget stretches, a basic one made for wax melts beside the bag works on day one. For first-timers, our guide on how to use wax melts without making a mess is worth a line in the staff email.

Two more things. This is a gift for home, not the office: plenty of workplaces don't allow warmers, and a warmer should never be left on unattended. And don't pour a bag of tarts into a bowl on the break room table for people to grab. They look a lot like candy, and they are not food. Once they're home, they belong in a warmer made for wax melts, away from children and pets.

◆ From the Workshop: Every tart we pour carries its fragrance oil at ten percent of the weight, and that number holds on every batch, every scent and every shape. More oil is not more scent: a wax can only hold so much fragrance, and past that point the extra tends to sweat out onto the surface instead of staying in the melt. In a 9 oz bag, ten percent comes to a little under an ounce of fragrance oil. It also means that when you buy a dozen bags, the person who gets bears has the same strength of scent as the person who gets boots; the shape is the only thing that changes.

One Number per Person: Budgeting Christmas Gifts for Office Staff

Pick one number per person and hold it for everybody at the same level. People compare gifts, usually by lunch, and the same gift at the same price settles that before it starts. Anything extra for the managers who carried you this year happens separately and privately.

Then count heads before you shop. The list is always longer than the faces you see every morning: part-timers, the weekend crew, the folks who work from home, seasonal help, the new hire who starts in December. Add two spares. One covers the person you forgot, the other the person who hasn't been hired yet. Put cards, ribbon and postage inside the per-person number, so the budget you set is the budget you spend.

A word on gift cards, the easy default. The IRS counts a gift card as cash, however small, and cash given to an employee is taxable wages that belong on the payroll. A small, occasional holiday gift that isn't cash generally doesn't. Your accountant has the final word, but it's one more reason a small physical gift is tidier.

Here is the math with ours. Each bag is $16.99 and ships free in the U.S., so a dozen comes to $203.88 at full price. Any two or more melts or signs earn up to 20% off at checkout, which is exactly the situation a staff order is in. We're a small Kentucky shop with 5,000+ customer reviews, and our Bluegrass Belle Wax & Wick melts come out of the same shop where we carve our signs.

A Six-Week Checklist You Can Tape Inside the Supply Closet

Print this and tape it where you reach for printer paper. Count backward from the day you'll hand the gifts out.

• Six weeks out: count heads and set the number. Write down everyone by name: full-time, part-time, remote, weekend, seasonal and anyone starting before the break. Note who doesn't celebrate Christmas, so their card says holidays.
• Five weeks out: buy one first. Order a single unit of whatever you're considering and live with it a few days. If it disappoints you, it will disappoint everyone.
• Four weeks out: place the batch order. The full count plus two spares, in one order, so the bundle pricing works for you.
• Three weeks out: match gifts to people. Check the box against the list, decide who gets which scent and shape, and mail the remote staff's early.
• Two weeks out: write the cards. One line you could say to anybody, plus one sentence only that person could get. That second sentence is the gift; the rest is packaging.
• The week before the break: hand them out. In person, early in the day, at each person's spot. Night shift and weekend crew get theirs on their own shift, from you, not from a stack by the time clock.
• That same afternoon: open the trade table. Put the spares out and let people swap scents and shapes.

The party is the wrong moment: half the room is talking, the gift exchange swallows everything, and somebody's bag gets left on a chair. The last day before the break is wrong too, because the people with vacation to burn are already gone. A Monday or Tuesday morning of the last full week, in person, with a thank-you you mean, is when it lands.

For the card, the first line can be shared; the second you write fresh for each person:

• "Thank you for this year. Go home, put your feet up and let somebody else run things for a while."
• "This place runs because you do. Merry Christmas, and thank you."
• "You made the hard weeks look easy, and we noticed every one of them."
• "Thank you for this year. Enjoy the holidays and the quiet that comes after them." (for anyone who doesn't celebrate Christmas)
• Then the second sentence, the one only they get: "Thank you for catching that billing mistake in March."

If We Were Placing the Order for Your Office

For a staff of a dozen, most bags would be Jingle Bell Jammies: cinnamon, clove, evergreen and gingerbread latte, December without the shouting, more cookie than candy cane. Then a few for the people not in the mood for spice: Baking With Mom (warm vanilla, sugar, cookie dough) for the plain-kitchen crowd, Cookies for Santa (snickerdoodle, vanilla sugar, cinnamon, clove, peppermint) for the peppermint people, and Bubble Bath & Chill (cucumber, honeydew melon) for anyone who doesn't celebrate Christmas or is tired of it by the tenth.

For the tarts, squares are the office default, boots and hats suit a crew that works outdoors, and we'd skip the hearts unless you want questions at the next staff meeting. For the two or three people who run a warmer most nights, the 8 oz squeeze pouch is the upgrade: the same scent as soft wax you squeeze straight into the dish, a stronger throw and no crumbs. Buy several and they may not match, because pouch color varies by batch; the scent doesn't.

The trade table does the rest. Somebody always wants what the next desk got, and two scents in one house is a pairing waiting to happen; we wrote a piece on how to combine wax melt scents without making your house smell weird for exactly that. If you'd rather build the mix yourself, all 30 of our scents are in the wax melts collection; read the notes, not the names, and you'll know who gets which.

The checklist gets a lot shorter once the gift is decided. Make it a bag of Jingle Bell Jammies wax melts for everyone on the list, plus two spares, and what's left is cards and ribbon.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are good Christmas gifts for office staff?

Good Christmas gifts for office staff are one small, useful gift for everybody that goes home, gets used up, and doesn't depend on diet, drink or a desk. A bag of wax melts in a Christmas scent fits all of that, and a handwritten line makes it personal. Mix in a few non-holiday scents for anyone who doesn't celebrate, and buy two spares for the people a head count misses.

How much should you spend on Christmas gifts for employees?

There is no set amount; the right number is one you can give every person on staff and repeat next year without wincing. Keep it the same for everyone at the same level, because people compare. Build the spares, the cards and any postage into that number before you choose the gift. If you are weighing gift cards, the IRS treats them as cash, which makes them taxable wages, so ask your accountant how to handle them.

Should I get the tarts or the squeeze pouch for a staff gift?

For most of an office, the 9 oz bag of shaped tarts is the easier gift: tidy, five shapes to pick from, and natural and plant-based, a coconut-soy wax blend with fragrance oil. The 8 oz squeeze pouch is soft wax you squeeze straight into the dish, with a stronger throw and no crumbs, for people who already run a warmer most nights. It has mineral oil added, so it is not a natural product, and its color varies by batch while the scent stays the same. Both are $16.99 and ship free in the U.S.