Okay, okay. The spirit of the holiday has infused me yet again - or I've taken a blow to the head - because I'm going to hold yet another Secret Santa blowout. You know how this works - you sign up, you are secretly assigned someone to get a gift for, and someone is secretly assigned to get you a gift. You will send the gift to a mule I will create for the occasion, I will distribute the gifts, and much joy will be had. We'll have an 'official' Christmas party, where I'll hand out gifts to those who come, and send gifts through delivery boxes to those who don't.
Because several people got screwed in Secret Santa last year (including one EXTREMELY generous soul who got his Santee an astral ring!), I will be changing one rule. You will NOT get a present from your Santa unless I have received a gift from you. I will not be sending out presents on faith alone to people I haven't heard a peep from. Too many people wound up empty-handed last year and while the point of the exercise is the giving, not the receiving, it left a bitter taste in a lot of people's mouths, especially mine. So if you think you can sign up for this to get free stuff from some poor sucker, think again. As with last year I will be publicly posting the names of those who don't come through, so humiliation will be yours if you try to pull a fast one!
As for a suggested price - honestly, I don't have one. People gave everything from fireworks to the aforementioned astral ring, from crystals to a 500k great katana, last year. Your gift absolutely does not have to be anything expensive or extravagant - some people just really like going overboard! To help you with your gift ideas, I would like to encourage everyone, on Denavee's awesome suggestion, to post a wishlist of items they want or need. Obviously, be reasonable with your wishlist - a stack of rolanberry pies is a good answer, a haubergeon +1 is not. If you don't have any ideas, please tell us something about yourself so your Santa can get some ideas - what job you're currently leveling, what crafts you participate in, etc. People were really creative and awesome about the gifts they got people last year and I'd really like to see that again. :)
Edit: Totally forgot. Denavee's wishlist suggestion included more than items - if you need help with missions, quests, NMs, etc, you can include that on your list and maybe your Santa will be nice enough to give you help as well as/instead of things. :)
Since I'm getting started a little late this year I'm going to make the deadlines a bit shorter. If you want to participate you have until Saturday, December 17th to sign up. I will close the signups then and assign Santees on the 18th. I would like to have the Christmas party on either the 22nd or the 23rd since the weekend itself is Christmas - any objections or suggestions, please post in the thread and I'll finalize the date accordingly.
Let's make this year's Secret Santa the fun and awesome event that last year's should have been. :) Post in this thread to sign up and let's get started!
PS: By all means, spread the word to your non-Alla-reading friends. This is definitely not limited to those of us who post here. :)
Edited, Fri Dec 9 20:35:09 2005 by Byaina