Secret Santa guides are often completely naff. They are now often written by robots who are given prompts and spit out whatever garbage they can come up with. If you told ChatGPT that your friend was an archaeologist who was into playing guitar, it would tell you to get a spade engraved with guitar chords. AI, in terms of gift-giving and Christmas joy, is fairly useless.
Secret Santa, as I've always thought of it, is primarily a good way of making snide jokes wrapped in lovely gift wrap. No one has to know you did it so, you can get away with a bit. If you've got someone who does STEM, you can get them a book on de-stressing. If you know a person who is always in the ASSL, you can get them a small stash of energy drinks. If you have a friend who doesn't go to Cardiff University, you can get them a Cardiff University sweatshirt.
There is nothing I can write that will make your gift choice for you. There is nothing in a newspaper that will be able to replace your real human connection with another person. The best thing you can do is think about the person you've been assigned. How well do you know them? Do you share any interests? Can you recycle/regift something you've got in your room? What is something small that they would want? Sometimes, people are just happy with a bag of sour sweets and a nice card.
If you honestly genuinely do not know the person at all—like you have been through in the deep end at your job, in your society, or your seminar groupchat that’s barely active, the best thing to do is be calm. No one is expecting a lot from Secret Santa. Maybea trinket or something cool at but not ing more than that. For example, if you’re trying to get a gift for a seminar friend, I think they’ll be fine with just a nice-looking notebook—especially if they do any degree in the John Percival Building. If they are in a sports society, you can get them a nice souvenir or if they lift weights, protein bars.
The wonderful thing about Secret Santa is that it is secret so even if you think your gift is crap, no one had to know that you gave it to them.