Fifty Secret Santa gifts under twenty, sorted by who you drew

Most gift lists are sorted by price. That is not the problem you have. The problem is that you drew a colleague you speak to twice a month, and you have a twenty-euro ceiling and no idea where to start.

So here they are sorted by who you drew.

You barely know them

Safe without being lazy. Nothing here reveals that you know nothing about them.

1. A good chocolate bar from a maker rather than a supermarket
2. A jar of proper honey, local if you can
3. Sea salt with something in it — smoked, herbed, chilli
4. A small bottle of good olive oil
5. Nice hand cream, the kind nobody buys for themselves
6. A candle that smells of one thing rather than eleven
7. A tin of loose tea with a scoop
8. Coffee beans from a roaster who puts a date on the bag
9. A pack of unusual postcards
10. A tote bag that is actually well made

You know them well

This is where you can aim.

11. The book they mentioned and never bought
12. A print of a photograph you both took
13. Their childhood sweet, tracked down
14. The obscure ingredient their recipe always lacks
15. A magazine subscription, three months
16. Replacement for the thing of theirs that broke
17. A good notebook if they still write by hand
18. The spice blend from the restaurant you both like
19. A plant cutting from your own, potted
20. A playlist printed as a track list, with a card

They already own everything

Give something that disappears.

21. A very good loaf, delivered on the day
22. Fresh pasta and a jar of sauce
23. A single excellent pastry
24. Bulbs to plant, with the month written on
25. A bar of soap that smells like a holiday
26. Seeds for something edible on a windowsill
27. Firewood, if they have somewhere to burn it
28. A bottle of something local they cannot buy at home
29. Beeswax wraps, which people use and never buy
30. A voucher for the bakery on their street

They are hard to please

Aim for funny rather than good.

31. The worst possible fridge magnet, sincerely presented
32. A tiny trophy engraved with something specific to them
33. A framed photograph of a stranger
34. Novelty socks, but the genuinely absurd kind
35. A jigsaw puzzle of something dull on purpose
36. A book of terrible jokes
37. A rubber duck dressed as their job
38. An enormous bag of the sweet they claim to hate
39. A certificate for an award they invented
40. A houseplant known to be indestructible

You want to make it yourself

The cheapest and the most remembered.

41. Something in a jar: chutney, granola, infused oil
42. Biscuits in a box you decorated
43. A drawing, however bad, framed
44. A booklet of your own recipes
45. A knitted or sewn thing, if you have the hands for it
46. Infused salt or sugar
47. A photograph you took, printed properly
48. A pot of herbs grown from seed
49. A mixtape, on whatever format they can play
50. A letter — the single most kept gift on this list

The five that always disappoint

Not because they are cheap, but because they say nothing:

• A mug with a joke on it
• Anything that plugs into a USB port and does nothing else
• A gift card for a shop they never mentioned
• Chocolates in a box designed for a petrol station
• A calendar for a year that starts in eleven days

The common thread is that they could have gone to anyone. Twenty euros spent on something specific beats forty spent on something generic, every year without exception.