The {Awkward} Office Christmas Gift Exchange

For the past 10 years I have worked in an office during the Christmas season, and each year I'm reminded of the sometimes awkward Christmas gift exchange among coworkers. Take this scenario:

A coworker gives you a Christmas gift but you had no intentions of giving that coworker, or anyone else at the office, a gift. What do you do?

1. Say thank you and leave it at that?

2. Say thank you and frantically figure out what you can bring in the next day as a gift for that person? And if you go with this option, should you bring your gift in the very next day or wait a few days to make it look like you really did have it planned and are not just "repaying" the gift?

3. Say thank you and then be so bold as to say, "I'm sorry but I wasn't planning on giving you a gift?"

This situation has happened to me during my working years during the Christmas season. If I remember correctly (and I might not because being pregnant has just made me dumb and forgetful) I don't think I've ever given anyone at the office a Christmas gift until this year. I've received lots of gifts, mostly little gifts like candies, candles, soaps, etc., but haven't repaid the favor. I have felt kind of bad for not giving a gift to someone who gave me a gift, but not bad enough to go by one for them. 

This year I just felt like giving a gift to a few people that I'm "close" with at work and was really excited to do so. I gave four ladies a cute little Christmas box that looks like a Chinese food takeout box filled with three of my knitted dishcloths. I really enjoyed giving these gifts and did it expecting nothing in return. That's the kind of gift giving I like - when it has meaning behind it and is exciting.

A few days after I gave my gifts I came into work to find a bottle of Bath and Body Works soap and a box of chocolates on my desk (which both fit my tastes very well). The gifts were from two of the ladies I gave the dishcloths to. I wonder if they had planned all along to give me the gift or if it became a last minute plan once they received my gift, following option #2 above? 

Either way, I know it really doesn't matter at all.Perhaps I'm just mean or cynical or whatever the correct word is here, but these are my thoughts! I love to give gifts, and when I do, I want them to be meaningful, from the heart, or something that someone would really like or want. I am just not a fan at all of perfunctory gift giving. To me it's just exchanging money and most of the time you get a $5 or $10 gift that no one really wants or is very cheap looking. I would just rather keep the money for myself, physically exchange the cash between everyone involved and skip the presents, or take the money and donate it to a charity or to help a family in need at Christmas. To me helping others would be far more beneficial than just exchanging gifts for the sake of giving a gift.