Meandering Missive: How to be a 'virtual' Secret Santa!

Monday, November 21, 2005

How to be a 'virtual' Secret Santa!

This "virtual" Secret Santa is one of the coolest things since sliced bread! Well, at least if you believe in the kindness of strangers, you enjoy holiday festivities and you feel that giving a thoughtful gift is just as nice as receiving one. (ALL of which describe me!)

I'll try to keep my glee under enough control to explain further. ;D If you click on the scene above, you'll be taken to the Secret Santa website, but I'll give you a brief intro first.

As most folks know (and the lucky ones have experienced), many offices and companies have a Secret Santa program during the holidays. It's similar to the Secret Pal concept, except that Pals exchange gifts secretly all year, whereas Santas only exchange once -- for the holidays.

I've never worked in an office with Secret Pals (too bad), but I have done Secret Santa exchanges a few times. I love both concepts and I really miss them, now that I'm a freelance "creative professional" who works from home. I suppose I could coordinate an exchange with the Beanie Babies and similar stuffed animals that hang out on my computer hutch, but somehow it just isn't the same! ;)

Enter Cal Henderson, Denise Wilton and Tom Coates of thinkblank.com, three kindred spirits who four years ago created a virtual version of Secret Santas. I can't believe I never heard of this until now, especially since almost everyone who knows me knows this is SOO up my alley! *chuckle* I still might not have known about it if not for reading of it in the blog of my friend Shari. (More on her in a minute!)

I wish I could have participated in past years, but at least I'm involved now, and plan to do it every year hereafter. So far more than 2,000 gifts have been exchanged, per the website. I think that's kind of small for a four-year-old project, so I'm doing my best to get the word out. Please join!

The website guides you through a super-simple registration process, including giving your email address (NO spam, don't worry!) and entering the URL for your online wish list. You must have some place (i.e. Amazon.com ) with a publicly viewable list of gifts you'd enjoy receiving. Since the Secret Santa elves recommend a $15 gift limit, make sure your wish list has at least some items priced at $15 or under. (Some folks may want to buy you two $6-$8 gifts rather than one $15 gift.)

On Dec. 10, the website will randomly email you the name and wish list info of someone anywhere in the WORLD (fear not: most participants are in the U.S., U.K. or Canada). You buy a gift (or gifts) and have them shipped to the recipient at the mailing address they provide on their list. At the same time, YOUR name and wish list have been delivered to someone ELSE, and you too will be surprised by something from your own list.

And now credit where credit is due. My oft-mentioned Las Vegas namesake, Shari, has a very cool blog at Shari.com. (She also had the foresight to register this domain name before I did. *grin*) When I read her blog yesterday, she talked about her past (and current) participation in the Secret Santa site and it sounded so great I had to check it out!

I called Shari "my friend" several paragraphs up because I believe you can become friends with someone even if you've never met. I do not, however, call everyone I know online my friend. My default is to like almost everyone I meet, but I wait to consider someone a friend until I learn what their personality and temperament are (and likewise they can learn about mine). If we have mutual compatibility that way, and if we also have enough things in common to make for conversation that lasts more than a few IM chats or email snippets, then I begin to consider them a friend. :)

If not for the fact that Shari is about 2 1/2 years old than I, I'd wonder if we were separated at birth. (Then again, perhaps I'm just a verrrrry late twin! LOL). Seriously, though, this is the only gal I know of (aside from myself) who can write verbose ramblings about the most inane topics in the world -- yet also weave in humor and insight. (Of course, we both write about serious topics too. But it's funny how we also share a propensity for the eccentric and the picayune -- not to mention a propensity for $10 words!)

On top of all that, we both are passionate for pet rodents (she: hamsters, me: rats); we both have jobs connected with the written/spoken word (she: an English teacher, me: a writer/editor); we both use a purple pen to make corrections in our aforementioned jobs; and we both are into photography, travel, gardening, good food and (duh) blogging. We both indulge at Bath & Body Works, prefer ranch as our salad dressing and used to read Tarot cards. We also both dabble in melt-and-pour soapmaking! How crazy is all THAT? And believe it or not, I once made an attempt to learn Gaelic! I mention this because Shari is a student of Irish Gaelic and it seems she's pretty good at it. As for me, I dabbled in Scots and Irish Gaelic for various reasons when I was in college, but alas, I didn't stick with it. However, to this day I think Gaelic is beautiful and fascinating.

The next time I'm in Las Vegas, we definitely have to meet up, girl! :) (Especially since it didn't work out this October). Even if we're not separated at birth, we can still celebrate our shared Shariness!

And for everyone else -- please consider joining the Secret Santa site. Who knows? You may even end up buying for (or receiving from) one of the world's two most eccentric Sharis! *smirk*

Today I am feeling giddy and festive.

posted by ScaryShari @ 2:52 PM

1 Comments:

At 9:55 PM, Anonymous said…

Thanks for the Secret Santa tip, i love the idea too & am looking forward to December 10th to start the gift exchange! :-) I'll see who else i can tell about the web site.

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