Surprisingly Secret

Today

As the family grows larger, it becomes more challenging to keep up with the demands of Christmas present giving. For some it's an expensive as well as time-consuming challenge. So nieces Helena and Ruth came up with the idea of a "Secret Santa" for this year where names were randomly allocated across the extended family. Paul and I received tickets to the theatre from James and Helena which is very exciting.

The event was deemed a success, worthy of a repeat, although we may change its name to "Surprise Santa" as secrecy didn't at any time seem to be the issue here.

In My Day

I first encountered the "Secret Santa" idea at Flare. A price limit (to begin with £5.00) was set and names were literally picked out of a hat. 

I have a feeling that one of the points of the event was to mildly tease the recipient, making sure that their well-known personal foibles were reflected in the gift. I drew the name of very quiet member of my team who loved her herbal teas, I didn't just buy her teabags; I made an enormous teabag and filled it with a selection. Of course, you can't legislate for lack of judgement, sense of humour or imagination and I have received the full range in my time, from rude knickers (don't people just love it when the boss opens something like this in public!) to dull soap. And people vary very much in their ability to take being teased. There was a lot of guessing as to the identity of givers with some people  obviously longing to tell while others kept tightly buttoned.

We did start circulating a list on which people described their own foibles which was illuminating, although staff always knew they couldn't go wrong if they gave me wine. Eventually these events died out because they became so unwieldy and because of their high embarrassment potential or were limited to teams within the company. 

Do you know, I just Googled "Secret Santa and found that you can download a secret Santa generator!