The office Christmas gifts that people actually want are the ones they can carry home on a busy train, use at home rather than at a desk, and enjoy without knowing who bought them. That rules out most novelty desk objects and rules in anything consumable, anything genuinely useful, and anything with a bit of theatre to it for the raffle table. This guide covers what works for Secret Santa, what makes a raffle prize the room actually competes for, and how to handle the colleagues who do not drink, have dietary requirements or are simply impossible to buy for.
Office gifting has a specific brief. You are buying for someone you know moderately well, in front of an audience, to a set budget, with no idea of their taste in anything. The safest route through that is to give an experience in a box rather than an object with an opinion.
What makes a good office Christmas gift?
Five tests, and a present that passes all five is very hard to get wrong:
- It travels. If it will not fit in a rucksack alongside a laptop, it stays under the desk until January.
- It is not personal. Nothing about their appearance, their relationships or their perceived personality. This is where the wheels usually come off.
- It gets used at home. A desk gadget lasts a fortnight. Something for a kitchen or a Friday night lasts longer.
- It does not need a receipt. No sizes, no tech compatibility, no assembly.
- It survives being opened in front of everyone. If the joke needs explaining, it is not a good office gift.
Sound gifts that pass all five: really good coffee, a solid umbrella, a proper notebook, a tin of biscuits for the team, a desk plant that survives neglect, a voucher for somewhere near the office. All perfectly decent, and none of them remembered past February, which is where the making kits come in.
What makes a raffle prize people actually want?
A raffle prize has a harder job than a Secret Santa present: it has to appeal to a room full of strangers and look good held up at the front. That means visual, shareable, and slightly surprising.
The colour changing gin kit is our most reliable raffle prize for exactly that reason. It works on blue pea flowers, which contain a natural dye that shifts with pH: the gin sits deep blue in the bottle and turns pink or purple the moment something acidic like tonic hits it. Nothing artificial is involved. Add 8 to 10 flowers to a 700ml bottle of gin, seal, shake and leave it about 12 hours, with an optional teaspoon of the Earl Grey infusion in the final hour, and it makes five 700ml bottles in total.
It works as a prize because the winner gets a party trick as well as a drink, and the change happens instantly in the glass. Any acidic mixer triggers it: tonic is the classic, though lemonade or soda with a squeeze of lemon do the job, and the more acidic the mixer the more dramatic the shift. Some diet tonics are not acidic enough, so a proper non-diet tonic is the safe choice.
Secret Santa without the landfill
The core problem with Secret Santa is that a small budget plus no information equals novelty tat, and novelty tat has a half-life of about eleven days. A kit sidesteps that because the value is in the afternoon it produces rather than the object itself.
A gin making kit is the steady choice here. The recipient adds an inexpensive bottle of vodka, because gin's flavour comes from the juniper and botanicals rather than the spirit and a premium vodka's subtleties get lost underneath them. They add the juniper and botanical blend, seal it, leave it to infuse, then strain and bottle. The standard kit infuses in under a week, and they taste as they go with the pipette so it lands exactly where they want it. The blend is built on bright citrus, lemongrass with lemon and orange peel, plus coriander and allspice, with juniper as the backbone.
Two useful office-specific facts. First, it is entirely legal and needs no licence, because it is infusion rather than distillation. Second, and more practically, none of our kits contain alcohol. They hold the botanicals, the equipment and the instructions, and the spirit is bought separately, which means the gift itself is not age restricted and nobody in HR needs to have an opinion about it.
The gift for the colleague who hosts everything
Every office has one: the person who organises the leaving drinks, hosts the summer barbecue and always has something interesting in the fridge. A spiced rum making kit suits them precisely, because what they enjoy is having something to serve people and a story to go with it.
It makes two 700ml batches in two flavours, a Captain's blend of classic pirate spice and a Jamaican ginger with a proper zing, and all they add is an inexpensive bottle of plain dark rum per batch, not one that is already spiced. The process runs to about 72 hours of infusing, tasting with the pipette until the spice level is right, then filtering, settling for two to three days, filtering again and bottling. A gift given at the office party is a bottle for New Year.
What about colleagues who do not drink?
This comes up more than most gift guides admit, and the answer is not to guess. If you are unsure, give a food or craft kit instead of a drinks one, or pick something entirely consumable and neutral like good coffee.
That said, the colour changing kit has an alcohol-free option built into the same idea. A blue pea flower syrup does the colour trick without the spirit: warm 350ml of water with 350g of sugar until dissolved and steaming, at about 90 degrees, turn off the heat, add 10 blue pea flowers and steep for 30 minutes, then strain and bottle. It keeps for a month in the fridge. Poured over ice and topped with lemonade, it turns from blue to pink up the glass.
On dietary requirements, the gin and spiced rum kits are all vegetarian, vegan, gluten free and lactose free. All our kits are hand-packed in Britain, and UK delivery is free over 15 pounds, which is worth knowing if you are the poor soul buying all the raffle prizes at once.
Office Christmas gift FAQs
What is a good Secret Santa gift for someone you barely know?
Something consumable or something to do. A kit, good coffee or a decent notebook all avoid making assumptions about their taste, their size or their sense of humour.
Do the drinks kits count as an alcohol gift?
No. None of our kits contain alcohol. They contain the botanicals or spices, the equipment and the instructions, and the recipient buys the spirit separately.
What makes a good raffle prize?
Something visual that looks good held up at the front, appeals to a whole room rather than one person, and gives the winner something to show off later. Colour changing gin is a reliable example.
How long before the party should I order?
Early enough to avoid the December post. If the prize is meant to be made rather than just won, remember the gin infuses in under a week and the spiced rum takes about 72 hours plus settling time.
What if a colleague does not drink?
Go for a food or craft kit, or use the alcohol-free blue pea flower syrup version, which does the same colour changing trick with lemonade instead of gin.
Browse our gift kits for Secret Santa presents and raffle prizes that leave the building with their winner.
