Gifts for Jehovah's witnesses

[Michelle]

For my team for Christmas presents i bought some festive gourmet popcorn and some fancy ornaments - everyone has a different one to match their personalities.

One team member is a Jehovah's witness. It doesn't feel right to give everyone else a gift and not her, but I know she cannot accept Christmas gifts. So I decorated the bag with a big "Thank you" on it (nothing holiday-related) and I plan to give her the popcorn and a gift card to Starbucks instead of an ornament.

If you didn't celebrate a holiday everyone else did and your boss gave everyone gifts for that holiday but gave you a comparable gift and simply framed it as a thank-you-for-a-great-year gift, would that be weird?

I want to respect her beliefs but also do not want to recognize everyone else and leave her out.

Thanks for any advice!

[starlily]

Can you re-phrase it as a New Year's gift for everyone? Maybe tell your staff you wanted to acknowledge all the work they did this year, that your looking forward to the next, etc.?

That's what we did after we found out our neighbors are JW ... and after we had already purchased a Christmas gift basket for them.

[Saudade]

When we gave out xmas gifts from our employer instead of sending a merry christmas card, we sent it in a thank you card because the JW employees could accept it. Previously they couldn't and would come to the office to get it reissued. We also sent out a thank you to the one known atheist.

[pescalita]

The tricky part with JW is they don't celebrate ANY holiday incl birthdays, so I don't think NY would work.

Thank you is a good idea, and it's not made up - that's really what your gift is for the rest of the team anyways and you're just using Christmas as the opportunity.

[redheadk]

I had some students who were JW when I was teaching. I always asked the parents how they would like me to handle things like this and they all suggested just framing it as a "thanks for being great" gift so I think your approach is fine.

[starlily]

Interesting, our neighbors accepted our gift. But maybe because we were slackers and didn't drop it off until at least a week after New Year's, they didn't feel that it was too tied to the holidays. I think H also said "thanks for being great neighbors", so I guess they could've seen it as a thank you gift.

[ChillyMcFreeze]

DH's administrative assistant is JW. For her birthday, they sign a Thank You card and give her compliments instead of saying, "Happy Birthday." I think that's a good way to frame it. She knows what's up, and I'm sure she would appreciate your effort of recognizing her without couching it in a holiday.

[StrawberryBlondie]

Dec 21, 2015 1:22:52 GMT -5 starlily said:

Can you re-phrase it as a New Year's gift for everyone? Maybe tell your staff you wanted to acknowledge all the work they did this year, that your looking forward to the next, etc.?

That's what we did after we found out our neighbors are JW ... and after we had already purchased a Christmas gift basket for them.

I like this. A lot.

[picksthemusic]

I have nothing else of value to add, except that I learned that JWs think the Easter Bunny is a phallic symbol.

[katfco]

Dec 21, 2015 16:58:48 GMT -5 picksthemusic said:

I have nothing else of value to add, except that I learned that JWs think the Easter Bunny is a phallic symbol.

It kind of is. It originated in part because the rabbit was a symbol of fertility

[wildfloweragain]

When I have a student who is a witness, the mom usually asks me to not give it to her with the other kids because it's obviously a holiday gift in disguise. So I give her the gift the day before.

But I think part of that reasoning is that she's a child and developing her sense of things. An adult can prob be fine with getting the gift along with the others framed differently.

Sent from my SM-G900V using proboards

[Michelle]

Thanks you guys!

I went with my original plan and I delivered the gifts to their doors separately. I had lots to tell her to show my appreciation for the year and the bag had a huge (not Christmas colors) THANK YOU! stenciled on it with "confetti" all around it. She accepted it gracefully and then came by later to thank me for the Starbucks card.

We have so much diversity on my team it can sometimes get challenging to ensure I don't step on any toes and that I tailor recognition to personal tastes, beliefs, etc. We have an atheist (who celebrates Santa Christmas, thank God, no pun intended), a JW, a Seventh Day Adventist, an evangelical, two Catholics, one I don't know and me, mostly liberal Methodist. Then we have 2 over 50, 2 over 40, 3 in our 30s, and one in her 20s. We have an ex-marine, two foreign-born U.S. Citizens, 3 Hispanics, 2 African Americans, 3 Whites, and in our least diverse area we have 1 man and 7 women. Oh we also have 2 vegetarians, 1 no-pork eater, 2 dieters, and the rest aren't picky, then 3 adamant non-drinkers, 3 adament drinkers and 2 take-or-leave its.

Now that I think about it, that is a lot for me to remember off the top of my head. And I have 2 new people starting in January... I am going to need to create some preference cards!