The Joy of Gifting

Some offices do and some don’t. Some gift their employees and help bring in the festive spirit. While there are others who believe in DIY and BYO (do it yourself ans bring your own, for the uninitiated). Mine belongs to the later, or is it former, damn that’s so confusing. Ok, so to put it in simple, less confusing terms, believes in do it yourself. So then, for the past six years ( yep that’s how long I’ve been with the organisation) you have to deflect questions like your organisation didn’t give you anything for Diwali (not even a bonus), what kind organisation is this (making you itch to say, the kanjoos kind), and then give you the pity and smug look.

On second thought why do you need the organisation, or for that matter, the power to be, do things for you. They have never done it before and don’t see it happening any time soon. They may have their reasons, or not have the budgets (cue the eye roll) for it. Why depend on them when you can do it yourself. At the end that’s what they are encouraging (along with a mail of does and don’t for decorating), so why depend on them to spread the festive spirit?

So with a little help from my friend at White Peacock Craft, got a small but elegant handcrafted Elephant lamp. There was a tiny personal ulterior motive to it (which was definitely not to butt kiss), the main idea was to do something for Diwali. Initially was bit apprehensive about it, but in the end gave into spirit of gifting and spreading the festive cheer.

To my great relief and delight they were appreciative of the small but thoughtful gesture, and they loved the little handcrafted elephant. Although I am a firm believer that when you do something good for others, never let your right hand know what your left is doing, since they arrived an incy-wincy bit late, they knew who these little elephants were from. 

Received a lot of gratitude and appreciation for it, which was never my goal, or the reason for doing it. Just wanted to do something and spread festive cheer. So was grateful for their appreciation. But the cherry on the top was when a colleague sent me a pic of including this little gift as part of her Laxmi  puja. Couldn’t have asked for more.

In the end would love to thank my friends at White Peacock Craft and Soul Sugar Bakery for helping me bring a small bit thoughtful cheer this Diwali, and adding a dash of sweetness and gifting with a twist on the traditional Diwali celebration, not just for my work colleagues but also for my dear friends. So in the end it was indeed a Happy Diwali.

P.S. I shudder at the expectations for Christmas... just kidding... let’s see what can be done!!!!