In general, buying a Christmas present for your boss is a good idea. This is an opportunity for you to show your appreciation for them, especially if they have been nice to you. If your boss gives you a Christmas present, you should definitely reciprocate. However, there are certain situations where you may be hesitant to give your boss a Christmas present, and I will briefly address the following situations:
- Your boss doesn’t celebrate Christmas
- The company or office avoids making a big fuss about Christmas.
- You have a tight budget
- you don’t like your boss
If your boss doesn’t celebrate Christmas, you obviously won’t buy him a Christmas present. However, you can always give them a gift on other occasions, such as their birthday, boss’s day, or father’s or mother’s day. If you know their religion, you can gift them something for their religious holiday. Anyway, the tips and ideas that I share in this article can also be applied to other occasions besides Christmas.
Some companies or offices avoid celebrating Christmas for various reasons such as the presence of many non-Christian employees. In such a case, you will not have an office Christmas party where people exchange gifts. However, if your boss celebrates Christmas, there’s no reason you can’t give him a gift in private.
You may be on a tight budget, especially during tough economic times, and that’s understandable. However, that’s not a good excuse not to buy your boss a Christmas present. You can always get together with a few other employees to buy your boss now. It can be a large or expensive gift that would be cheap if shared among several people, or it can be something like a gift basket where everyone contributes a small item. Yet another idea would be to take your boss out for a nice Christmas dinner together.
What if you don’t like your boss? Well, this is a difficult question. No one likes to give gifts or have dinner with someone they don’t like. However, if that person is your boss, it may be to your advantage to buy him a Christmas present anyway because you want to be on his good side. Plus, it’s always rewarding to be kind to others.
I once worked in a store with an owner that nobody liked because she was kind of mean and always tried to find fault with everyone. I looked at the designer bag I was carrying and decided to buy a gift certificate from a store that sells that designer brand as a Christmas present for my boss. Her eyes lit up when she received it. She said that she really appreciated it since none of the other employees had bought her any Christmas presents. Yes, she still scolded me from time to time, but whenever I came to her for favors like asking for a few days off or leaving a little early to spend time with my little girl, she never made a fuss.
So, to reiterate, I strongly believe that it’s a good idea to buy a Christmas present for your boss. It’s always a nice feeling to brighten someone’s day no matter who they are, as doing so also brightens your own day.
