My wife participated for several years. Sometimes she got good gifts, other times they were not that good. Nevertheless most of the joy we had was in giving our gifts. We tried to go out of our way and it was exciting reading the reaction of people who received them.
The best gift my wife got (she is an avid dead tree book reader) was a book she had on her list. But the secret santa bought the book and illustrated it magnificently (using the book's empty pages) before sending it to her.
Frankly, with the exception of people who are very close to me and actually know what I would appreciate, I don't like gift exchanges that much in the first place... Just a good way to end up with things you don't want but feel guilty about getting rid of.
That's why I always give consumable gifts - chocolate or wine or whatever.
Gift giving is not about changing a person's life forever, or shouldn't be. Its making them smile on the day. That's it. If they're entertained or please I knew what they liked or just hungry, I've succeeded and the gift has succeeded.
The beauty of being a Grinch is you don't need to hide it.
I have no birthday, and I don't celebrate gift giving holidays. I don't want any presents, and I won't reciprocate.
I do apprechiate postcards and holiday cards though, but I don't generally send them and I'll feel a little bad about that. Maybe one day, my heart will grow three sizes and I'll start sending a handful of cards.
I don't like having a birthday either, and I will sometimes give people presents, but I absolutely never want any.
This seems to cause friction though, and maybe represents some kind of personality issue. I don't know why I'm like this or what it might mean though.
For the record, I did secret Santa a couple of times. First time went to a ton of effort to send a nice, appropriate thing (House of Leaves colour hardback) and got nothing. Next time though I sent some crappy thing and received a giant box of Simpsons socks. That was actually really cool.
> This seems to cause friction though, and maybe represents some kind of personality issue. I don't know why I'm like this or what it might mean though.
Maybe I'm biased, but if expressing your non-consent of celebrating something about you that you didn't chose causes friction, that's not your personality issue. A desire to give everyone presents even if they don't want them is the personality issue.
Receiving a present creates a social obligation to deliver a present later and may also be a conflict of interest. My spouse was an elected official (board of supervisors of a tiny government agency) and it was great because I had a concrete reason to refuse gifts; anything from not close family over a tiny threshold had a reporting obligation, and anything over a not so big threshold was prohibited; nobody wanted to participate in reporting, so no gifts.
The best gift my wife got (she is an avid dead tree book reader) was a book she had on her list. But the secret santa bought the book and illustrated it magnificently (using the book's empty pages) before sending it to her.
That's the type of gifts you just cant price.