Secret Santa - to do or not to do?

A lot of charities do suggest you purchase a ‘gift’ and they send a card to the person you are giving for. I can’t remember it’s name but one gave to African villages. You could buy seeds, trees, etc depending how much you want to spend. A lot of GNetters seem not to like this idea.

I must sound a Scrooge, but don’t think that adults in this type of group or club need to be exchanging gifts really.

Just because you’ve done it for years doesn’t mean it has to carry on.

What on earth do you get them? Chocolates, toiletries, charity shop articles that they probably don’t want, and end up back in the charity shop?

It’s a bit late for this year, but think it’s something to be brought up early next year maybe.

I think that giving a donation in their name to something is not acceptable.

Our Walking Netball group is having a Secret Santa with a limit of £5 to be spent in a charity shop. You could do that LRavenscroft.

At our WI Christmas party we have a Secret Santa. Anyone who would like to buys ONE gift up to a certain amount of money. These are all put in a box and those who have put in a gift takes another out. Those ladies who haven’t put anything in, don’t take anything out! Simple.

Surely Secret Santa involves buying only one gift?
On the one hand, that is only £10 and you could buy it from one of the charities you support, or your “Secret Santa” gift could be a £10 donation to a charity of the recipients choice.

That’s the first time I’ve heard of a Secret Santa arrangement where you buy for everyone in the group. I thought the point of it was so everyone received a gift but each participant only bought one gift.

I’d maybe suggest doing it that way this year and anyone who is in a financial position to donate the saving of £90 to charity can do so. There may be a few in the group who are feeling the pinch this winter and will be relieved at your suggestion.

I agree Lathyrus. It always seemed a strange idea to me that someone would say ‘I’ve donated money to a donkey sanctuary (or whatever) as YOUR Christmas present’!
😁

We did that Lixy at a group I used to belong to, except we drew raffle tickets to match the one on the box. Some presents were really nice and others were rubbish. I always seemed to get rubbish ones which was a bit miffing as I always gave something decent!

Oh wow. It didn’t occur to me you meant £10 for each of them😱

25Avalon

You could give a card saying I have donated £10 in your name to whatever charity. Alternatively why not speak to your group and see what they all want. Maybe you could all club together and choose a different charity to give to each year.

If it’s supposed to be a gift then I’m not sure about telling someone it’s been donated to a named charity.

I mean there’s one that gets a lot of donations that I wouldn’t give the dirt off my shoes😱😡

A slap in the face to find my “gift” was going to something I don’t support. Cue crosspatch😬

Don’t do it if you don’t want to, but you don’t get a gift either. This might sound obvious but I was in a group where one person didn’t buy on principle but did expect an extra one supplied for her🤔

Or you could request that any gifts from the group to you are as cash in a card as you would like to donate the total amount to a charity of your choice?

Does your Secret Santa mean you buy a gift for each person? With ours we each buy one gift, put them all in a box, put a cloth over the top and then draw out one each (without looking!).
£10 each that way rather than £100 - certainly wouldn't be spending that this year or any year.

Could you have a look around charity shops for jewelry? Or as special edibles as Sodapop suggests above.

You could give a card saying I have donated £10 in your name to whatever charity. Alternatively why not speak to your group and see what they all want. Maybe you could all club together and choose a different charity to give to each year.

I think you need to stick with your beliefs L.Ravenscroft charities are going to be really struggling this year so I would give the money to the rescue centre.
Maybe you could make some cakes for your group instead or a jar of hone made chutney.