Nate Armbruster
The pressures of a Secret Santa gift exchange at work can be stressful and annoying. It was even worse for TikToker @ughstarr when her coworker regifted her Secret Santa gift the same day.
Alexis Starling participated in the weeklong gift exchange at the school she works as a counselor. As explained in a TikTok video, the exchange was set up for each participant to give and receive a $5 gift for the first four days. Then, on the last day, each participant gives and receives a $20 gift.
On the first day of the Secret Santa exchange, Starling placed the gift she had prepared for her assigned recipient, a teacher, in her classroom. Later, she noticed that the teacher had moved the gift to someone else’s cubby.
“This is where I wrote her name. She scratched it out and wrote the other teacher’s name,” Starling says, showing the gift bag in her video. “You regifted the gift I gave you on the same f*cking day?”
In the video, the TikToker expresses frustration with the teacher and says that she may not bring any more gifts for the rest of the week.
@ughstarr why do I always get so mistreated w secret santa LOL
In the comments section of the video, some viewers praised Starling for reclaiming the gift, while others were shocked by the teacher’s decision to scratch out her own name and write the name of another teacher instead.
In a follow-up video, Starling clarifies that participating in the Secret Santa exchange was optional.
“She did not have to sign up. If she didn’t have any money, she didn’t have to sign up,” Starling says. “She made an executive decision to sign up.”
In the video, the TikToker explains that she took the gift back in order to confirm that the teacher was not only reusing the gift bag, but also the gift itself. She says that this was “a slap in the face” and that the teacher could have been more discreet about it, rather than leaving it in the teachers’ area for everyone to see. Many viewers commented that they agreed with her decision to reclaim the gift.
In the video, Starling shows that the gift she gave was a mug with the phrase “Sounds like a you problem” on it. She had chosen this gift because she knew that the teacher was a fan of mugs. Inside the mug, she had also placed some cocoa mix. The teacher had apparently taken the cocoa mix before regifting just the mug to someone else. Starling expresses frustration that the teacher would do this, especially given that she had put thought into the gift.
@ughstarr Replying to @ana_ken154 here is the update but also this has me all messed up LOL let me knlw what yall think I should do
In the video, Starling expresses disbelief at the teacher’s actions and says she plans to confront the teacher about it. She notes that she actually likes the teacher and thinks that the teacher will be “very, very, very, very crunchy” when they find out that Starling was their Secret Santa.
Starling says that she considered a few different ways to respond, including reusing the same gift bag from the first day and crossing out the second teacher’s name, or giving the teacher no more gifts until the end of the Secret Santa exchange.
In a follow-up video, Starling says that she ultimately decided to reuse the same gift bag for her next gift. However, while she was on her way to deliver the gift, she ran into the teacher’s Secret Santa recipient, who told her that the teacher had regifted Starling’s gift to her.
This led Starling to reconsider her decision and instead give the gift to the recipient directly.
@ughstarr Replying to @msnita83 yall we have a mole among us😂😭 secret santa day 3 and we also still have a dilemma
Starling says that she didn’t want to ruin the Secret Santa exchange, but she felt that she needed to confirm the rumors about the teacher with the other recipient. The other recipient agreed with Starling and thought that the teacher’s actions were “crunchy,” according to the TikToker.
She decided to give the day’s gift to the other recipient, who had missed out on her first gift due to the regifting incident. Starling says that she still plans to give the remaining gifts to the teacher, but she is not sure yet how to confront the teacher about what happened.
Starling says that she wants the teacher to know that she knows about the regifting.
