Christmas Gift Auction

Ahhh…Christmas.  The most wonderful time of the year.  And also one of the most stressful.  I wish I had a secret plan for avoiding the stress, but I don’t. I've concluded that most of the stress is self-induced.  Yes, you heard me.  Self-induced.  Well, maybe YOU don't but I know I bring a great deal of it on myself.   But not all stress is bad.  Especially if the result is worth the stress.

One of my favorite self-induced stress-creating events of the Christmas season is our annual Christmas Party.  It’s a combination company/friend/family event that I push myself to outdo the previous year’s fabulousness.  But I love it!  It has grown significantly over the years, from a gathering of 6 to this year over 50.  Back when it was 6 (3 employees and their significant others) and we had dinner at a nice restaurant, we started the tradition of getting a little something for each of our employees and their guest.  Continuing the gifting as the numbers grew has required a little bit of imagination.  

How do you choose personal gifts for so many?  Well, we don’t. We simply buy an equal number of random girl/guy gifts.  Now before the $$$$$ start exploding in your head let me say that this doesn't have to cost a fortune.  Gifts can be as cheap or expensive as you choose.  We get a combination of mostly inexpensive items, and a few nice things.  I honestly enjoy shopping for the party much more than gifts for friends and family.  With this its not about finding the perfect gift for someone, its about the fun of the game.  Stress-free gifting!  Imagine that!

So here’s where the fun (and stress) comes in -  Finding a fun way to give the gifts.  We’ve done the Dirty Santa/gift stealing thing and the righty/lefty gift rotation thing a few times.  This year I wanted something NEW and ORIGINAL.  And that's how the Christmas Gift Auction was created.  

Upon deciding to do some type of auction, I ran through how I wanted the auction to unfold in my head.  What follows is a description of how and why I put it together the way I did.  Do modify according to your own needs and desires.  

MONEY:   I wanted the Santa Bucks to be in large bills.  I thought it would be more exciting if the bidding was OUTRAGEOUS!  I mean, not many of us get to bid thousands of dollars on auction items, right?  I copied actual $100 bills on our office copy machine in color (is this considered counterfeiting??  If so, please do not share this information with the Feds!).  I cut and pasted, old school style with scissors and glue a picture of santa I got from google Images on the front of the bill and a picture of the North Pole on the back.  OMG! They turned out so cute!  I did print them two sided - I wanted the Santa Bucks to be as authentic as possible!

GIFTS:  I wanted the gifts to be wrapped.  How hilarious it would be for someone to unknowingly bid thousands of dollars on a scarf!! But who would bid on a box without some kind of idea what’s in it? So we made up clues to attach to the gifts.  I didn’t want it to be accurate clues - just SOMETHING to make them THINK they might want to bid on the item.  

For example, the clue on the wreath box was “I’m just hanging around.”  Get it?  Not really a CLUE, but just a clue. 

Here are a few other examples:

Bottle of wine - “Quit your whining”

Crock pot - “mommy’s little helper”

make up bag - “face the day”

mini bluetooth speaker - “I’m your boogie man”

glue gun - “Stick ’em up”

car cleaning kit - “Get your shine on”

Can you see the tags on the gifts?  Nothing fancy!

I made sure some of the clues were random because I REALLY DIDN’T WANT them to know what was in the box.  Actually my kids helped make a lot of them up.  It’s funny how their minds work and relate to things.

DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH: I wanted everyone to start out with the same amount of money (just to be fair), but I didn’t want it to be equal once the bidding started.  As guests arrived each was given an envelope with $700.  The envelope had the game instructions and rules on it so everyone would know the process for the auction.  

BOOSTING YOUR BANK :  After cocktails and our buffet style dinner, we hosted a few rounds of head to head Christmas trivia.  I made my own trivia cards (there are tons of trivia questions online) and assigned a dollar amount relative to the difficulty of the question.  I picked up some bells at a thrift store to use for ringing in.  To choose competitors, we simply pulled names from a hat.  The trivia round was a hoot!  I mean, REALLY!  How can someone not know the names of Santa’s reindeer?  I know. It’s shocking.  And as you can imagine,  the ladies beat the crap out of the guys at trivia!  

Oh, and I also placed Santa bucks around the party area (in the bathroom, around the buffet table, in glasses on the drink station, etc) for guests to find before the auction began.  Once guests realized there was money hidden around the party area, it was like a mini scavenger hunt.  It was hilarious to watch.  It’s amazing what people will do for a $100 bill with Santa on it!

THE AUCTION:  The auction was a blast!  My husband and I were the auctioneers.  Once an item was won by bidding, the gift was opened.   We allowed the auction winners a one-time opportunity to re-auction their item if they wanted to bid on another.   The bidding wars were hilarious!  As the rules stated, you could only win one item, but you could donate your leftover bucks to someone.  It was comical watching people begging for someone’s leftover Santa Bucks so they could win a bid.  

This was absolutely the most fun we’ve had with gifting.  When I mentioned to one of our guests that it would be hard to come up with another original idea to beat this one, she said (and I quote), “Are you kidding?  You need to do this again!”

Merry Christmas and happy gifting!