Secret Santas galore

In case you’re not sure what a Secret Santa is - it’s where a name is drawn from a group of people and an anonymous gift is given for Christmas. This type of gift giving at Christmas is popular in older family groups and work colleagues. This year I’m involved in three organised Secret Santa gift-giving groups:

NZ Post Secret Santa

This year New Zealand Post’s Secret Santa has been so popular they’ve opened a second round. There are over 2,600 participants secretly checking Twitter feeds to arrange just the right present for the person they’ve drawn. I’ve drawn a mysterious young woman who has locked her Twitter feed so I have no idea what her gift preferences might be.

It’s lots of fun to watch people tweet photographs their gifts, wrapped and being posted to the NZ Post warehouse for redistribution. Then it’ll be neat watching all the recipients sharing what they were gifted on Twitter. NZ Post also donates money to Christchurch’s City Mission for each Secret Santa registration (as well as all unclaimed presents) so it’s good will to all for this festive season.

Work Secret Santa

There are 22 of us going to our work Christmas lunch this year and we’ve decided Secret Santa is the fun way to go when it comes to appreciated each other this Christmas.

We need to get our gifts under the work Christmas tree by this Wednesday for distribution on Thursday at lunch. This is lots of fun because we all know each other - so we have an idea of what gifts to get - and how to tease each other by what we decide to give.

Blog Secret Santa

This is a nice twist on the usual anonymously-wrapped gift. In this case, we secretly give a guest post for our recipient blog. The posts are sent to our bloggers on Christmas Eve and they post them on Christmas Day.

In this particular Secret Santa the theme is Content Strategy and I’m playing even thought I don’t have a Content Strategy blog. I attend the Content Strategy MeetUps and content is what I do during the day, so I’m telling myself that’s okay to play. 

Tiny Books

I’m still amazed at these amazing tiny books. I ordered them online on a Wednesday evening. Pulling images from my Instagram feed and sorting them into three books. On the Thursday I was notified that FedX had my parcel and it was on it’s way and it arrived on Monday. I mean - wow. That’s service!

They are super cute and I love the magnetic covers as much as I love the perfect images on the pages. My littlest granddaughters are completely enamoured with seeing themselves and the rabbits inside such tiny wee books.

Check out the other products Printstagram offers. Fast and good and cheap - and I thought you could only ever have two of those at once!

Christmas Holidays

I am so looking forward to the ten days I have off over Christmas. In a strange twist, I am on my own for Christmas with everyone doing different things and me staying home to look after the rabbits. While I might get to spend some time with Melissa and Simon, I’m feeling pretty happy about days of just doing what I like, when I like, and enjoying the solitude. I won’t have to cook, or talk, or pickup after anyone. It’s really just this cool blue span of time I’m really looking forward to.

Long Weekend

Speaking of time off - my long weekend is going swimmingly. My Friday was busy and full of personal projects; Sunday was completely void of any structure or work. Tomorrow I have a couple of appointments but no work until Tuesday. 

I’m still amazed at what a genius move this has been so close to the Christmas break!

Associated links:

•  Printstagram (Tinybook)
• Secret Santa (Wikipedia) <= send $$ to Wikipedia's while you're there
• NZ Secret Santa (NZ Post) 
• Blog Secret Santa (Twitter)