“Have you ever heard of a thing called ‘Secret Santa’? It’s this activity where a group of friends draw names out of a hat, and they are supposed to buy a lot of Christmas presents for whatever person they choose. The presents are ‘secretly’ placed in their lockers when they’re not there. Then, at the end, you have a party and all the people reveal who they really are and give their last presents”.
– Perks Of Being A Wallflower
I believe in the existence of a particular invisible group, which appears on the planet sometime before 25th December each year. We, the members, know what Christmas is. We see it coming every year. We know there won’t be any Dairy Milk Chocolates from Santa under our pillows anymore. We no longer wish to visit the same old Church only to light a few candles alone. The thought of letting another Christmas pass by uncelebrated is something we continue to dread.
But this year I might have something in bag for us. It’s called the ‘Secret Santa’. I had the privilege of a 24-year old friend, exhausted from office work, chalking out the whole event for our group of friends. In case you want to be ‘him’ this 25th, I’ll tell you where to start from. I don’t trust the traditional hat picking process for I know how to do all those paper-chit-cheating tricks. Here are a few websites which will help you decide who is whose ‘Secret Santa’ without anyone getting to know.
Secret Santa Random Name Generator selects names for a Secret Santa group and automatically sends participants an email. All you need to share are email addresses, the number of presents of each participant and names of the participants.
Draw Names saves group information, so you can draw from the same group again. There’s also an option to input your wish list and view the wish list of the person you’ve selected.
Secret Santa Generator lets you add a rule (like person A can’t pick person B) which is useful when two people live in the same household or your group doesn’t want to pick the same people as last year.
Next, you need to look up for a date when all of you could meet up to exchange the presents and decide a venue for the same. The idea of throwing a Christmas Get Together at one’s place sounds perfect to me. Who knows, you might even get to eat some ‘real’ Plum Cake? You could even ask everyone to dress up in Christmas-y colours like Red, Black, Green or White for the occasion. Try arranging for brown bags for everyone to put their presents in, so as to maintain the anonymity.
You could keep a limit on the amount of money one can spend on the presents. If you have the event well planned in advance of Christmas, ask everyone to deliver a present each week to their partner and the final one of the day of the party. That should give them enough time to prepare each gift thoughtfully. Follow these steps and you’d be done with a major chunk of the work.
Now comes the last step – preparation of the presents for your partner. I believe everyone has their choices changing constantly and it can difficult for you to decide. The idea is to not only give them what they could ‘possibly’ love but also what you’d love to give them. There is an interesting idea you might want to try. In The Perks of Being A Wallflower, Patrick initially gifts Charlie thrift store slacks, a tie, a white shirt, shoes and an old belt. His final gift to him is a suit coat because “all great writers used to wear suits all the time”. Build suspense using the initial gifts and let your last present sit like a perfect cherry on the cake. Vanessa, the founder of a website called Messy Nessy Chic, provides the reader with a list of last minute and cheap DIY Secret Santa Presents. Also, you could use Pinterest to draw some inspiration from. Chumbak also offers a range of gifts meant especially for Secret Santa.
Do it right, and you have finally earned yourself a Christmas you will celebrate. I’d be glad even if a few members of our invisible group have an amazing time doing the ‘Secret Santa’ this year.
Merry Christmas! Ho! Ho! Ho!
