The tradition of Secret Santa, where you get Christmas gifts from an anonymous person, is slowly catching up in the city. Vinith Perla, who works at IBM says, “Names of all colleagues are written on different chits and you need to pick one of them — you will be that person’s Secret Santa… My Secret Santa got me a Manchester United merchandise since that’s the football team I support. These kind of programmes bring people closer.”
Himanshu Jaiswal, territory sales manager from Practo, says, “We start giving out small gifts like chocolates etc. along with a chit that contains clues about their Secret Santa. On December 24, we exchange the gifts. Since the person would have got sufficient clues about their Secret Santa, they are supposed to make a right guess.”
B.S.N. Sree Charan, associate recruiter from Amazon says, “We check their interests, ask mutual friends and try to find out more about the person before finalising a gift. Since I am into photography, I was gifted a flash light. Events like these help you to know your colleagues better.”
Himanshu agrees and adds, “I have around 50 people in my department. I don’t have a good bond with all of them but because of events as such, we get to know them more. Even your Secret Santa tries to find out more about you and in the process, you end up making new friends at work.”
Neelima Paruchuri, recruiter for an IT company says, “Our Secret Santa ritual starts at least five days before Christmas. At our office, we make sure that we gift people for three days and we leave clues for them to find out who their Santa is.”
