If I’m being perfectly honest, I’m not a big fan of “Secret Santa”.
It’s not the discomfort attached to having to work out what it is that someone’s bought for you while everyone watches, or having to pivot rapidly to gratitude and feigned amusement as you realise that that is what they think of you – because that’s who they think you are.
In a cruel sort of way, that’s all worth it for the fun of watching everyone else work out what’s been bought for them as they pivot rapidly to gratitude and feigned amusement, while it dawns on others that that is what we think of them.
It’s the reality that I both know how difficult I am to buy for, and how difficult I find knowing what to buy for others. On the former, maybe the gifts over the years mean that my entire personality really does amount to work, the Eurovision Song Contest and swear words – as the copies of its official history and the novelty post-it notes gather dust on the shelf.
And then on the latter, I’m always baffled at how colleagues knew what to get. Are they stalkers? Mind readers? Did they cheat, and ask?
