The holidays are upon us, and it's time to spread cheer! This year I, Sandrockcstm, will be hosting a Secret Santa for Elekk and friends. This event is completely voluntary, so please only join in if you feel comfortable!
Traditionally in the area I grew up, Secret Santa involves everyone writing their name on a slip of paper, putting it into a hat, and drawing names from the hat. You then become the "Secret Santa" for that person, and agree to get them a gift! You have your own Secret Santa as well that will give you a gift, but you won't know who it is until the day of the event.
Since we're a digital community, we'll be using digital tools to organize the event, in particular the Secret Santa Organizer. This will handle the random assignment of people to one another and allow me, the organizer, to handle administrative tasks more easily.
Scroll down to "Instructions" for a detailed, step-by-step guide.
Anyone that is in good standing with elekk.xyz is allowed to participate. If you have been banned from the instance, or Elekk has defederated from your instance, you are not allowed to participate.
You do not have to be a member of Elekk to participate in Elekk's Secret Santa.
I will, however, be vetting each entry to make sure the account is consistent with Elekk's rules and to filter out any accounts that seem suspicious to me.
I maintain sole discretion to approve or reject any entry at any time.
The minimum is $5 USD per gift. There is no upper limit to what you may spend (just make sure you'd be ok giving someone a gift worth $60 USD and receiving a gift worth $5 USD!). Handmade gifts are also allowed, but the other person must be willing to provide an address to ship it to, so don't rely on this as not everyone will be comfortable giving this information out.
The point isn't to get a bunch of free or expensive loot, but to let everyone know what we mean to each other!
Either, but you must give some kind of digital option on your wishlist, as not everyone can afford to pay for shipping on top of the cost of the gift. No one is required to provide any address of any kind unless they want to.
Please keep gifts family-friendly, as I can't personally verify that everyone who participates will be 18+.
Make sure at least one of your gifts will cost $5. A lot of us on here have limited income and even $10 is a stretch.
If you believe you know your recipient well and have an idea for something that will be personally meaningful to them, feel free to not use their wishlist! However, if you get matched with someone you don't know well, it's probably best to stick to the wishlist. Some people love spontaneous gifts, while others have very specific taste.
I will work very very hard to make sure everyone's information is kept private, but there are some things to know in terms of risk.
By design you will be letting someone into another part of your life aside from your instance. This might be your steam profile, amazon wishlist, paypal link, etc. There's always some risk when linking your various accounts together. If you're really concerned, you probably shouldn't participate. But the key here is that people will only know what you give them access to.
It's also important to understand that if you put information into Secret Santa Organizer, I can see it. I can see all the matches, as well as everyone's wishlist. This is necessary for organization and moderation purposes.
Secret Santa Organizer has a pretty unambiguous privacy policy about not using your personal data for anything, but as with all things there's an element of trust required. Since SSO is open source, their code is available for anyone to look at, and as far as I can tell there are no major red flags, but you can never be 100% sure.
When the event has finished, I will delete the event and all the data it contains.
Yes, but please let me know as soon as you suspect you won't be able to participate. Removing someone from SSO after the event has started creates a lot of problems, as the person buying you a gift has to get assigned someone else, and someone else has to get assigned to your recipient. The worst case scenario here is that someone has already purchased a gift for you and then gets assigned to someone else that doesn't want that gift.
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Direct message me @sandrockcstm@elekk.xyz by 11/30/19 to let me know you want to participate. I'll need a real email address you check often. If you have significant others, family, or anyone else participating that you don't want to be matched with, please let me know their username at this time so that I can set up an exclusion. This can't be changed once the matches are made.
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On 12/1/19 I will start the event. At this time you will get an email letting you know that you have been matched to someone. Click this link to be taken to your personalized page and see your match!
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Create your wishlist. This is a required step so that your Secret Santa knows what kinds of gifts you want and how to get them to you. It's highly recommended you put URLs here to simplify things for your Secret Santa. You must have at least one digital "good" listed, such as a link to your Steam wishlist, a transferrable eBook, etc. You may list your Amazon wishlist or your address if you have physical items you want delivered to you. At least one item must be worth $5 and be digital to accommodate low-income Santas.
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Do not buy your match's gift until at least 12/3/19. This is to make sure there were no bugs in the software and that everyone matched correctly. It also gives everyone time to finalize their wishlists or drop out.
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Purchase a gift for your recipient! Many platforms like Steam allow you to buy gifts early and have them delivered on a certain date. You are free to use these options, if you'd like, or to have the gift delivered ASAP if that's more convenient for you. You may get friend requests at this time, as some services don't allow you to purchase for non-friends, so be ready to look for and accept them! If possible, personalize the gift with a nice note :). You are not required to identify yourself, though it is nice for people to be able to thank their gift-giver directly!
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Please make sure your gift is delivered by the end of the year (12/31/19). If you have not received a gift by then, please reach out to me and I will contact your Santa to try and get the situation resolved. It might be a simple matter of it getting lost in the mail, something coming up in their personal life, or it getting lost in the shuffle with the holidays. If I am unable to resolve the situation with them, I will try to find a substitute for you.
If at any time you have a question or concern about your recipient's wish list you may contact them anonymously via the Secret Santa Organizer. They will not be able to respond, but this is a convenient way to let them know if a link is broken, or to say "If you'd like a handmade scarf feel free to put an address on your wishlist, otherwise I'll buy something from the list!"
If you absolutely need a response you may use me as a go-between to keep things secret.
If you have any questions or concerns during the event, please contact me @sandrockcstm@elekk.xyz !