The 12 ways of Christmas - Secret Santa

It's that time again, we spend 10 months hoping it gets here, one month preparing and then the whole of December questioning the sense of it all.

I'm going to start with Secret Santa. This year over half the people in the #Cubefarm decided that they'd like to do a #SecretSanta.

I have some ideas why the other less than half opted out, the stress of finding a $10 trinket, or for a couple of course the obvious religious reluctance.

I managed to persuade one of the non participants to draw the random name thing for everyone, much easier than going desk to desk, person to person, get everyone signed up and then get them a name. Hopefully the person drawing the names made some common sense decisions about pairing people up, despite everything there are people that wouldn't match well with others.

In previous years I've managed to accrue some really tacky things, things that aren't even remotely funny or even vaguely related to my own sense of humour or interaction, the comedy computer mouse with boobs as buttons for instance.

Perhaps someone should have got me a funny bone instead.

To be fair I kept this in my office cupboard for ages before it suddenly made its way into oblivion.

There is, at least for me, at least a little bit of skill required to get something that's at least pertinent to the person you're buying for. But there are always the obvious and desperate box of chocolate gifts that are just thoughtless, at least they're trying though.

But and also, I've been part of the #NZTwitterSecretSanta thing, whereby @Websam for the second year mashed together a webs site and a random pairing generator to connect nearly 800 people together for a similar process.

The obvious drawbacks, some of the twitter accounts turned out not really to exist, some of them were locked or protected accounts, some of the participants are not regular tweeters. Of course there is always a percentage that will receive and not give.

I've given, and wait patiently for reciprocated love, and I'm aware a few people in the same boat, waiting for both the receiver to acknowledge the gift, and to receive their random thing.

Last time up I received a water pistol. Like I said random, and not always thoughtful or pertinent.

Related articles

• Secret Santa Gift Idea (the-stuff-i-like.com)


• My Reddit Secret Santa is the Best! (be-lured.com)


• A Universal Secret Santa Gift (dangerouslee.biz)


• A Christmas Poem for Your Secret Santa (secretpalteachers.wordpress.com)

 

Secret Santa

It's an opt in for the company, and I put all the opt-in names into a hat, well to be precise a beanie.

I then go around armed with the beanie and a clip-board of names of the combatants

3 people pulled a named from the beanie then told me who they had picked. Idiots. How is that a secret?

I made them put the name back and pick a new one.

Lets the games begin

 

SecretSanta'ing it up

Pretty much up for any interesting idea that does not cost the earth and basically remains anonymous.

#nztwittersecretsanta is then all those, interesting, cheap and anonymous.

Trouble is that you send something and there are a couple of outcomes

1.Recipient gets the gift and posts a thank you which is either (a)profuse or (b)polite
2.Recipient gets the gift and nothing - de nada, zilch, zip, which means either (a) they hate it or (b) they didn't get it.

Trouble ensues of course when they don't tweet about anything much, and when they do it's not about #nztwittersecretsanta.

The dilemma remains then - send again or guts it out ?