Secret Santa unmasked: Compincent’s Christmas 2024 survey reveals the best, the worst and the most hilarious gifts!

A jar of snot, a pair of rubber gloves and a mortifyingly vibrating package were just three of the Secret Santa gifts suffered by our December survey respondents.

Secret Santa has become an increasingly popular tradition, giving teams and groups the chance to exchange gifts of an agreed value, so everyone gets something and no-one has to bankrupt themselves. We asked about the best and worst gifts to give and to receive, and the answers were enlightening – we’re taking notes for next year, especially as 40% of our respondents say they were able to correctly guess the identity of their anonymous giver.

Novelty gifts can raise a laugh, but they’re more often a miss than a hit, according to some of our red-faced and regretful Secret Santa recipients. But on the plus side, simple gifts that don’t take too much time and effort to source are perennially popular, with personalised mugs, quality chocolate, candles and wellness or beauty products getting a big thumbs up. The watchword here is luxury: out-of-date, unbranded or strangely flavoured or scented items definitely don’t bring Secret Santa joy. And pity the person who received only empty chocolate wrappers. We suspect a giver with an uncontrollably sweet tooth!

Surprisingly, one of the least popular gifts amongst our survey respondents was a gift voucher. It seems like part of the fun of Secret Santa is having a physical gift to unwrap: there’s not much joy or theatre in opening an envelope!

Secret Santa gifts on a high budget came in for praise: this is a more likely scenario in a family group, where everyone buys one person a gift rather than spreading their budget thinly across the entire family. One happy recipient treasures the designer handbag they received. This can be a great solution to make sure family members receive a meaningful and useful gift that they wouldn’t buy for themselves, rather than a dozen ephemeral items.

Our sympathies are with the recipients of a jar of lime curd labelled “thickest human snot”, some Kim Woodburn-style washing up gloves with a leopard print trim, an IOU note and company branded merchandise. We applaud the innovative givers of a highly appreciated whittling knife, lottery scratchcards and a personalised ‘stop-out’ kit including a toothbrush and other overnight essentials!

We promised a small Christmas prize for a great anecdote: if you’ve been on tenterhooks to find out more about the suggestively vibrating gift we mentioned at the start, here’s the winning story behind it!

“As the organiser of one year’s Secret Santa, I was carrying the box of presents into the pub where we were going to open them over a team lunch. Suddenly, something in the box started vibrating. On investigation, we discovered a phallic-shaped package with my name on the label, and a message from Santa that this gift would help to spice up my life! You can imagine my trepidation at opening the package in front of my boss… and my relief at finding an electric pepper mill within!”

If you’ve taken part in a Secret Santa exchange this year, we hope you’ve given and received gifts that brought good cheer. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all.