It may be true that it’s the thought that counts, but when it comes to distributing 500,000 condoms engraved with the company's details - as one firm did to staff last Christmas - there may be a case for keeping your thoughts to yourself.

“We think it was the marketing department that came up with that one after their own Christmas lunch,” says Colin Nickless, director of the Devon-based Business Gifts UK, “and it was certainly a novel proposal. But as the firm is ordering standard calendars and pens this year, we can only assume it didn’t go down too well.”

When it comes to distributing largesse among close associates, the unwritten rule of "business gifting" is to choose something appropriate.

Yet judging by our Top 10 list of genuine unwanted gifts bestowed on PAs by thoughtless bosses in the last few years – provided by Business Gifts, Crone Corkill, Reed Employment and others - it appears that it really is more blessed to give than to receive:

• A signed and framed photograph of the boss looking manly behind his desk (just when you were looking forward to forgetting him for a few days).

• A DVD featuring the live version of Slade's Merry Xmas Everybody.

• A light-up pair of reindeer horns which only light up on one side.

• A detailed photograph of the office Christmas party at which you can clearly be seen snogging the postroom boy. Signed by members of senior management.

• A tasteless set of itchy, satin lingerie. Three sizes too big and wrapped in a charity-shop bag.

• Two tickets for a Rod Hull and Emu lookalikes contest for a London-based PA just over from Romania. It was in Berwick-upon-Tweed.

• A £5 book token together with a reminder that everyone will be expected to come in an hour earlier from the New Year.

• A two-hour, digitally remastered tape recording of the boss’s annual sales conference speech as centrepiece to a "goodie" bag containing elastic bands and paperclips. Complete with coughing and chair scraping.

• A 300-page compendium of Les Dawson jokes which you just know you’ll be hearing all year.

• A heartfelt, handmade Christmas card recording all the sentiments of the season, together with a holly-decorated P45. OK, we made that one up, but would it really be such a surprise?

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