How did you know the group of people with whom you exchanged gifts?
I'll scream bah humbug louder than any of you, but tonight I've actually found something that's gotten me in the holiday spirit. I'll still thank you never to play another xmas carol, but this is just plain cool. Not just for the awesome gifts, but for the manner in which they were exchanged.
The most interesting gift I believe I've ever seen given was exchanged amongst people that, mostly, had never met each other. Well, they may have never encountered each other in person out in the wild real world, but many of them interact every day via the website reddit.com.
Roughly 5000 people coordinated a record-setting secret santa exchange through the online community with what appears to be, record-setting success. The previous record, set just last year, has just been blown out of the water. Leave it to the internets to ruin everything.
So, about the gifts. I don't care what comes inside of a box shaped like this (a bottle of hooch would fit well), I'm not going to be disappointed:
But that's not the most excessive, decoyed, awesome gift possibly given this year. If anyone can top this gift, by all means, please send it my way. A movie, a great movie, and a nice piece of technology all encased within the most disappointing book anyone could receive on xmas.
If gadgetry isn't your thing, then maybe you'll appreciate this . . . thing that was sent through the reddit secret santa.
The recipient named it David.
It's really quite remarkable. What many people would consider random strangers are not just swapping gifts, but going all out to not be that loser that just sent a gift card. And I would have to argue with the description of this community as being "random strangers." Do you consider someone you speak with on a daily basis a random stranger? . . . These "random strangers" don't either.
And no, no one had a stalker show up at their door and slip their throat. Give up all of the worst-case-scenario possibilities of how anonymous gift givers could take advantage of the personal information and ruin lives. After being suggested to spend no more than $15 on the gift and shipping combined, the average amount expended has been closer to $35. Outliers have topped $2000.
Now that's the spirit of xmas! Trying to be the biggest badass possible through the offering of the best gift.
