Our department has a holiday party each year and part of this is a \u201cwhite elephant\u201d gift exchange. Last year, I hit the $20 limit with a gift bag of art supplies – and it was the most \u201cstolen\u201d and coveted item. Not that it\u2019s a competition, but it was fun to see that I had chosen something engaging. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This year, I was trying to figure out what to share and came across a desktop caddy I had bought that came as a kit to assemble. It was a wooden version of a dumpster and came with little paper pads that looked like fire. So, a dumpster fire. It got me thinking and I decided to do sort of a themed gift bag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Along with the desktop caddy dumpster fire, I added a small first aid kit, a bottle of hand sanitizer, a box of pop-tarts (my signature, in a way) and a bath bomb. I added a tag to the outside of the bag that said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nThings are weird. Hang in there.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
It was a sort of self-care\/be ready for anything\/gallows humor package and while it wasn\u2019t really fancy, it had been assembled with some thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the day of the gift exchange, most of the items were hot cocoa or wine – it was almost a theme – and mine got chosen towards the end. The recipient showed off the items in the bag and the card – and my colleagues guessed it was from me based on the contents and the pop-tarts in particular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next day, the recipient came looking for me in the office and thanked me for the gift bag. He said,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI know you didn\u2019t put that together just for me, but the tag and all the items in it really spoke to me, \u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was touched by what he said and that he sought me out to share that. That\u2019s really the goal, isn\u2019t it? To have a gift that is appreciated. And while it wasn\u2019t specifically for him, it was meant for everyone on the team. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Things are weird – and not always in a fun way.\u00a0And I do hope that we can all hang in there and get through the weird times together.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, it was a success. An odd little collection of gifts that shared intention and hope. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Our department has a holiday party each year and part of this is a \u201cwhite elephant\u201d gift exchange. Last year, I hit the $20 limit with a gift bag of art supplies – and it was the most \u201cstolen\u201d and coveted item. Not that it\u2019s a competition, but it was fun to see that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2828"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2829,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2828\/revisions\/2829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}