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Veterinary Practice News Editorial Blog:
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Secret Santa Stockings
By Katherine Dobbs, RVT, CVPM, PHR
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 If you haven’t noticed, the holiday season is upon us. Two radio stations in my hometown are already playing holiday music, and some stores had their holiday items already shoved behind their Halloween décor ready to move up come November 1st! Chances are your practice has some type of holiday gathering or activity planned. After all, it is the time of year to be thankful and celebrate with the people in your life. So here’s a fun holiday tradition you can start this year at your practice—Secret Santa Stockings.
This activity is voluntary, because it will require each person to spend approximately $20 being a Secret Santa to a colleague in the practice. Let the team know of this expense ahead of time before they make a commitment. The activity requires a stocking to be purchased by the practice for each person who participates. You can hang a nametag on each stocking to identify its owner, or write their name in glitter pen if you have someone creative on the team. Then each participant fills out a short questionnaire about things they like. This gives the Secret Santa a clue on what to buy, even if they aren’t already good friends with the person whose name they drew. Appropriate questions can include favorite candy, color, animal, sports team, etc.
Each participant’s name with their completed questionnaire is put in a hat (Santa hat perhaps?) and then each person takes a turn blindly grabbing a name out. Now the shopping and waiting begins. It’s best to start this activity at the beginning of December to give the shopper time, and build the anticipation for all! The stockings are hung up and begin to secretly get filled. Some Santas will start to fill their person’s stocking early on, and some will wait until the very last minute to pack it full, so it’s fun for the participants to check their stockings each day. It’s nice to hang the stockings in a place where everyone can enjoy the festive decoration, which also makes it challenging for people to sneak gifts into the socks. (It’s also fun to see what people come up with as far as “psyching” out their person with fake stuffing, silly things hanging out that are not wrapped, real expensive brand-name boxes peeking out of the sock, etc.)
No one is allowed to look inside their stocking until the designated time, such as during a holiday party or after a pot luck lunch. The name of the Secret Santa can either be hidden down inside the stocking to be revealed after the gifts are removed, or the Secret Santa may wait and verbally unveil themselves in person during the gift frenzy.
This is a fun, relatively inexpensive way to have fun during the holidays with your practice team. It’s important to foster a sense of camaraderie among the team members, and it provides a way for team members to get to know each other better. Even someone you thought you knew might surprise you with how they answer the questionnaire. During the holidays it is both fun to give and receive, and this allows your team to have fun doing both!
Hint: When turnover occurs, and it always does, the glitter name can be snipped away from the stocking with scissors and new names applied, especially if a stocking with a “furry” white cuff is used.
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