We had our yearly secret Santa lottery at work today. This will be the fifth one I’ve participated in.
You know how these things work. You pick a random name from a hat, then the next year you pick a different name from the hat. With the pool being typically 12-20 people, it would be a rare thing to get someone more than once. I’m pretty sure that in the whole history of it, there has never been a repeat.
The first year I got Heather. Not a freakin’ clue. I had no idea what someone like her would like. I had my then-GF help me out.
The second year, I got… Heather. At least then I sort of knew what she liked.
The third year, I got… Heather. Hey, great. I was getting pretty good at targeting here tastes. That year I got her two nice things. I figured that I could start a tradition that I’d never have to make good on.
The fourth year, she hinted that maybe I got her again. Actually, she hinted by asking me directly. I told her an honest no, and she just said “Dammit!” Nope, that year I got Linda. Linda loved her gift. So much so that she told me almost every day since. Not just in passing, either. I’d walk by her office and she’d pull me in and not let me leave. You know that little sway that you give, the little body language that says the conversation is over and you intend to leave? Linda can’t seem to read it. She’s the Energizer Bunny of boring conversation.
If the Secret Santa thing at your workplace is anything like the one at mine, it’s totally fixed. We all squabble until we agree on who gets what name (and who gets stuck with the weirdos).
Ooh, weird synchronicity thing going on here. The gift I gave Linda was a painting of her daughter, as a small child. It was before I knew the daughter even existed. And apparently it’s an exact likeness. And the daughter’s name is… Heather.
Anyway, the pick got messed up. One person’s name never went into the hat. Oddly enough, this is Stephanie, whose birthday always gets forgotten.
Tomorrow we have a do-over. Start making your predictions!
Either get her something nice or get her something so terrible or weird that she’ll avoid you.
The problem comes when your weird is her nice: to wit, edible underwear.
Get her a troll doll dressed up like a dominatrix. Or a chia-pet.
(so glad we don’t do this at my work. Soooo glad).
It’s obvious to me that you and Linda and one of the Heathers are destined to have some kind of a love triangle if not an all out threesome. Be generous, invite Stephanie to join in.
You know, it seems like every year we get a newbie or two at work who says, “Oooh! Why don’t we do Secret Santas?” And then us old hands have to kill them.
For the last several years we’ve each gotten $50 in a Christmas card from the petty cash fund, and we’re satisfied. Although last year our new director made us all attend a Christmas dinner. Pot luck. At which we did a gift exchange.
This makes absolutely no sense to me. Care to parse it down so that someone who doesn’t know the gang at your office can understand? And how can you give a picture of someone you didn’t know existed, and have it look like her? Sorcery?
Consider that most small children look pretty much the same, and there’s one particular style of sun dress and floppy hat that have been popular for at least 25 years. If you have a daughter and you’ve taken her to the beach when she was a toddler, chances are I’ve painted her too.
In fact, before I gave it as a gift, I showed it to yet another coworker, whose first reaction was “That’s my daughter!” I painted another one for her. There’s yet another coworker who wants to commission a similar work from me. If it didn’t take me three weeks to crank out just one, I think I could have a nice little side business going on with this. But I think I’d be in serious danger of becoming a one-hit-wonder, with serious undertones of Hallmark glurginess.
My office’s Secret Santa draw would have been today had we not run out of time, but it’ll be done before the end of the week. The season of fine arts and crafts shows in the run up to Christmas is starting this weekend and that’s a big source of gifts in my workplace.
Huh. I just noticed that we didn’t do a Secret Santa drawing yet this year, and it’s usually done in September. Not that I want to participate, mind you. I tried it one year, and I got someone that I didn’t even know at all, and I didn’t know the person who got me, either. No fun.
At my first “real” job, they called it “Secret Holiday Pals”. Therefore, when I came to this company, and my boss explained the concept of “Secret Santa” when I had been there about 2 or 3 months, I said, “Oh, we did that at my old company, but we called it Secret Holiday Pals!” Well, that set my boss off about political correctness and the War on Christmas and blah blah blah and ended with how wrong it was that evolution was taught in schools. And I (being, perhaps, young and dumb and pretty pissed off at that point–I never said it should be called Holiday Pals–I just didn’t know at first that Secret Santa is the same thing!) said that evolution should be taught in schools, because when you go to the University of Minnesota and you take a biology class, they expect you to be familiar with the concept, and a kid who is not would be at a disadvantage. Well, she’s been icy cold to me ever since…it’s been over two years now.
If they forget Secret Santa, that’s just fine with me.
I love Christmas, but hate secret Santa. I give plenty of gifts at the office - but I give to those I want to give to. The people that I don’t give to, I wouldn’t have any idea what to give them. (I always give those people a Borders gift certificate.)
Cause I can see how you might not want to leave without that.
