Miffed at Christmas - or | 12/11/2008 |
 OK. I'm starting by reminding myself that I LOVE Christmas. I always have. When I was young it was the "getting presents" business, and that's still nice, but as I've gotten older, I find I enjoy giving the gifts even more. And not just giving the gift, but hunting for and capturing a good one.
A gift doesn't need to be "perfect", but that helps. I do settle for "good" gifts, mostly because you can't top "perfect". I've succeeded in getting my wife 3 "Perfect" gifts in the ten years I've been together with her..."Perfect" is tough. "Good" works just fine. For me seeking and finding a fitting gift for the people I know is a way to show them I care.
On top of this, I tend to do a theme gift, sort of as a joke, but also to reflect my personality to them.
So, all of the above still applies - BUT - (c'mon, you knew that was coming) then we get to these Secret Santa initiatives. The concept of the Secret Santa is nice enough, but I prefer not being involved in this type of gift exchange. When I buy gifts for people, I prefer it to be people I know, because I like to think I know their tastes. Secret Santa exchanges have the extreme potential to put me in line to purchase a gift for someone I not only don't know, but also don't like.
At the businesses where I have worked, I have always declined to be part of Secret Santa, specifically because I find it unfair to me to find a gift for someone I don't know, and equally unfair to that someone. Yeah, sure, you're supposed to get to know that person better by being their Secret Santa, but how can you get to know that person better when it's supposed to be a secret?
This brings me to a small bit of embarrassment. The Guys' Night crew have decided on a Secret Santa gift exchange this year.
Let's face it, the economy is pretty bad, and people might not be able to afford a large Christmas gift-getting frenzy this year. This is true for the Guys, and for myself, so we all agreed on the Secret Santa exchange. After all, buying one gift is more economical than buying six.
After we determined who was assigned to whom, we promised to keep to only one rule: We will not tell each other for whom we are buying a gift.
Now, you would think that the Secret Santa situation for the Guys would be the perfect blend of my Christmas loves and hates. After all, I'm not buying for strangers, right? Right. That being said; however, it is still possible to be given the one person you know the least about. Did this happen to me? Why, yes, yes it did.
I know the guy, he's a nice guy, but I know practically nothing about him.
This isn't really an issue, though because I can just ask the other guys who know him best about what he likes....Oh, sorry, it's SECRET Santa, and we have this ONE rule -- and clearly, asking such a question will point the finger at whom I'm assigned to Santa for.
Did I mention I don't care for the Secret Santa thing, and regularly don't participate?
Since not participating isn't an option, I went out shopping last night. I got him something. I hope he likes it, because I can only guess what his tastes are. I went on this theory: All of the other guys would think this was a cool gift - Hell even I think this would be a cool gift - so I can hope that this guy will think it's cool, too.
We'll wait and see.
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