Kirsten R asked:
I’d like to get a few little Christmas presents for the people I work with this year. It’s my first Christmas with this company, so I don’t know what the norm is. I work with a lot of middle Eastern people, from Egypt, Lebanon, Iran, etc. I’m wondering if it would be acceptable or appreciated to give these non-Christian-holiday-celebrating people a Christmas gift. It wouldn’t be Christmas-themed, more like a personalized coffee mug or something like that.
Thoughts?
Of course. It’s a season of giving, not prejudice and exclusion. I think they would understand that.
You don’t have to give them as Christmas gifts. My husband gives New Year gifts so that he doesn’t offend anyone at his office. It doesn’t have to be anything expensive. It can be something specific for each person or go with a winter theme. I don’t know how many people you have in your office but you may thing about bringing some sweets o favors.
Some ideas:
Here is an idea for a gift that costs from $2-4 per gift.
What you need to buy:
If you have a local thrift-shop you can find a few things there. I just got back from getting presents there. They usually have a section for like plates, coffee cups, and dishes and such. The coffee mugs usually cost from $0.50-$2.00. I found a couple nice ones that looked brand new were christmas or another holiday themed. Then I went to the stuffed animal section and they have bags of 10-15 Bennie babies for about $8.
I then went to the dollar store and bought candy canes, chocolate and some other goodies. I also picked up some tissue paper and some colored ribbon. I also got some construction paper (in christmas colors)
Other stuff to put in the cup if you want…
If you dont wanna use stuffed animals and candy try filling the cup with assorted chocolates and a mini bad of coffee beans.
and…if you wanna add a little somthing extra make a braclet for each person(if they are girls of course) and put it around the beannie baby’s neck.
You could also get some plain ornaments and decorate them with glitter, sickers, pompoms, or anoything really. you coudl fill up the extra space with tissue paper of candy.
You can also bake cookies and put them inside!
Anothet great idea if it for a teacher or an older person you could fill the coffee cup with popurie (sorry about spelling). You know that stuff thats smells real good that has like dried flowers and cinimon in it. You can buy it for pretty cheep. get shrink wrap and put teh popurie inside and tie it at the top and add some cinomon sticks and a ribbon for decoration!
For teachers:
you could get a little mini version of a great book in side the mug. You could also attach a picture fo your elf and maybe a poem, picture or stort story you made.
Putting the gift together:
I put the tissue paper in the coffee cup and filled the bottom with candy. Then, I stuck the stuffed animal inside and put the candy cane in so it sticks out of the top. I made little tags/cards out of the construction paper and used the ribbon to tie them to the handles.
Drum-roll please…
So I ended up spending about 30 dolars on about 10 gifts. I handed them out to my friends and teachers…although my few close friends got a larger stuffed animal and more candy.
ENJOY!