I once had a party and said ‘no gifts’, but some people brought gifts. Which meant that I had to write THANK YOU NOTES. The whole reason I specified no gifts, is because I hate writing thank you notes.
I’d bring a bottle of wine and a card.
Ha. At our wedding earlier this year (second for both of us, with established households & everything), we wrote “No gifts” in the invitation. Still wound up with a ton of stuff. I commented that we should have written “We have more shit than we know what to do with, and no one wants to write thank you’s for stuff they’re going to regift or donate anyway.” My wife was not amused.
When I worked at a paper mill in GA, our team regularly took our boss (who made roughly 5 times what I did) to lunch for her birthday. The person she tasked w/ organizing it let everyone know their portion of the lunch bill and cash gift. I was told this was a ‘Southern tradition’ and my refusal to participate was greeted w/ horror. She wasn’t a boss who took you out for your birthday and gave you a gift, just a boss who expected her subordinates to treat her luxuriously in exchange for…I never did find out what she felt we should thank her for except being our boss.
I guess if one thinks about how slavery worked in GA, it was kind of a Southern tradition.
I agreed to go to the lunch and pay for my own meal and get her a gift of my choosing, which was a Target gift card that she called ‘cute’.
If she’d been a really nice person, I wouldn’t have been so recalcitrant; but not long after I started working for her she heard that my husband at the time and I were pursuing surrogacy and she called me into a private meeting b/c she felt I needed to know that, as a person who had given birth while I had not, SHE could never feel like a mother to a child she didn’t give birth to. Folks said a lot of awful, ignorant stuff to us in those years but considering her position, hers was in the top 10.
Oh, a Hallmark birthday card is fine. Sorry, I thought folks were talking about a gift card, which i think would be a really horrible idea.
Thanks for all the replies. This is very helpful as y’all are bringing up points I probably wouldn’t have thought of. The party is tomorrow at boss’s home so I still have a small window of time. I thought wine was something to bring to sort of thank the host so that might be a good idea but I’m not much of a drinker myself so not sure what to get that is not expensive but also not crap. People always make jokes about boxed wine. I do think boss really meant no gifts but I suspect someone will bring something. Usually the next in line organizes something but all we did this year was a card at the office.
I own a nice decorative bowl because friends hosted a “not the wedding, but we want to celebrate with you anyway” party and said, “no gifts”. Someone gave this couple, who lived on the opposite side of the country from this party, a large, heavy, fragile ceramic bowl. So they gave it to me, since i lived half an hour away by car and could take it home. I rather like that bowl. But they were NOT thrilled about having to find something to do with it.
Being the only one to bring a gift?
Great way to piss off your co-workers.
As a boss, I agree with this.
One of my direct reports gave me a gift one year for the holidays. I found it very awkward.
Not expensive but also not crap, drier than I like but I like sweet white wines - Chardonnay.
If you actually have a personal relationship with the boss, then maybe consider bringing a card. But if it’s just your boss and you’re a generic worker, don’t bring anything at all. If you don’t know the boss very well, I wouldn’t bring wine or food because you don’t know if it’s their taste or will go along with whatever they are serving. If they have a fancy spread catered spread, they aren’t going to want to put a bunch of random food out that other people bring.
Personally, I think it’s weird that a boss is throwing their own birthday party and inviting the workers to it (presumably on their free time). It sounds a little clueless to me. Throw a holiday party to as appreciation for the employees? Great! Throw a party for yourself so the employees can wish you happy birthday? No thanks.
Reminder: there are a lot of people who do not appreciate alcoholic beverages and may not allow it into their homes. Be very certain that it will be appreciated (and not just tolerated) before doing this.
That’s exactly what I meant. I’d vote for a funny card, too, but I like funny cards.