Gift giving brainstorm commences...now

As you may recall from last year, there is a somewhat crazy practice in my group that the attorneys give gifts to virtually all staff members. Last year, it cost me nearly $600 in total christmas gifts given to my secretary, other secretaries who'd helped me out, all of the paralegals, the file clerks, the copy clerks, and then to buy bottles of champagne for all the shareholders in our group. While I'd like to try and keep things a little bit simpler this year, I'm not sure just how much I can simplify since I currently have 15 people in the office on my list who I must buy for...even when excluding shareholders this time! Since I usually spend around $200 on my secretary, if I averaged $10 on everyone else it would still be about $350 and for some I'm going to need to do more.

But the biggest problem isn't the pricetag, it's deciding what to buy for everyone. Last year I gave them gift cards from Cheesecake Factory, wrapped in boxes with a couple of cookies for each person. Someone else gave them movie tickets, and another gave candles. I believe one associate has already cornered the market on Starbucks cards with christmas mugs this year, so that option is out. So, what the hell do I get?! I need an original idea, something that can be in the $10-$20 range depending on how much work the person has done for me, and that will be easy for me to buy a lot of rather than requiring me to do individual shopping for 15-20 smallish gifts. Anyone have ideas? My list consists of my secretary (that needs to be something really nice), about 5 other secretaries in the group who have done overflow work for me, 6 paralegals, a separate medical records team who I'm pretty sure I'll get a cookie basket for, and the 2 copy clerks.

I'm really at a loss for ideas right now. Generally speaking, I hate gift cards. I find them to be impersonal and not very fun to open, even though people usually enjoy getting them. Last year I opted for the Cheesecake Factory cards only because one had just opened near our office and I knew that the staff would enjoy being able to go to lunch together at my expense. But I can't do a repeat of that gift from last year, and in general I'd like to avoid restaurant gift cards as a concept.