....when you were younger you wrote a letter to Santa and, if you were lucky, on the 25th of December you found all that you wanted under the tree. Now that we have reached adulthood we find that we must battle with the concept of the secret Santa.
The secret Santa system is, inherently, a good thing. It is a mini-lottery whereby you buy a present for only one person in the group and only one person buys a gift for you.
The problem arises when you try to find out who is your secret Santa in order to deliver a briefing on a suitable present. Some people take it so seriously that you have more chance of breaking the Da Vinci code than you have of penetrating the veils of Santa secrecy.
Apparently its in the secret Santa rulebook that all participants bind themselves into the contract of secrecy under no less penalty than being hung, drawn and quartered should they ever reveal any details of presents before Christmas day. Actually, I think I'm getting confused here with the rules of freemasonry but the secret Santa circle can be quite strict. The first unwritten rule seems to be that no-one talks about what they would want as a gift, making gift buying for someone extremely bloody difficult, the second unwritten rule is that no-one talks about what they want. Sorry, wait a second, I think I might be thinking about that secret Santa club film with Brad Pitt in it, but the first rule definately does apply. The second rule is that you must smile and act graciously when your secret Santa hands over the most inappropriate of gift's. And they will do that because they have no idea what you would like or want.
If I am honest, even before adulthood I was always a complicated bugger to buy presents for. I wasn't one for writing letters to Santa and when people asked what I wanted I would usually answer with “Och, I don't really know.” It was a guilt thing. I preferred the concept of giving than receiving presents. I liked the process of choosing what gifts to buy for other people but asking for a specific gift for myself or even hinting at what I might like was alien to me, it went against my nature.
But I'm also a rule breaker and there are no better rules to break than those of secret societies so this year I'm going to break the habit of a lifetime. It helps that I'm also feeling rather selfish this year. I've decided just in the off chance that my secret Santa happens to read this blog ( that should be very slim, to nae chance, but you just never know) I thought I would share what I would like as my gift.
Dear Secret Santa,If you happen to be loaded, and are of generous spirit and money is no object, and would like to give me something ( a lot of 'and's' in this sentence please excuse my poor grammar) that I can't currently give to myself then the gift to give me would be the gift of travel and (another one) some means to capture what I see. I'm not really one for luxuries and I'm a spontaneous kind of guy so first class travel on a open ended see the world ticket wouldn't be my style. I'm not one for waiting in airports or organising schedules, I'm quite happy for fate to intervene in my travel plans so something like a hot air balloon as a gift would suit me just fine. In fact the more I think about it the more it appeals, the thought that I would see the world in what ever order that the wind determined sounds rather interesting, as long as I didn't run out of gas whilst flying over an ocean or a hot dry desert but then not knowing what is going to happen each day would only add to the excitement I suppose.
Like all travellers I would also need a camera so that I can take an indecent amount of pictures with which I can bore the pants off of friends and family when I return home. If I return home that is, after all there is that problem of negotiating oceans and deserts .
Anyway assuming that I do return it would be nice to bore people silly with images that I can be proud of, for this I require a digital slr camera. I won't be too greedy I don't want one of those fancy £5000 Canon Digital cameras, basically because I'd be scared to drop it, and knowing my luck if I had something so expensive in my hands I would do just that whilst I was being carried by the wind over the Himalayas. I don't want to say Hello Mount Everest, bye bye camera, so with that in mind I would be quite happy if I got something about a 1/5th of the price. A Nikon D200 would be very nice indeed and i'm sure I could handle it without being a nervous wreck.
Alternatively, my Secret Santa, if you are not of well off means but would still like to make me happy then I have the perfect gift. My neighbour, below me, plays darts constantly. Well it seems that way but in all honesty its more like 45 minutes out of every 60 but nonetheless the 'thud, thud, thud' that echoes through the wall as the darts hit the dartboard is really doing my head in. So the perfect (no cost) gift for me would be for you to have a little talk with my neighbour and make him see sense, in a way that I have been unable to, that me slowly being driven crazy by repetitive thudding is not in anyone's best interests.
Thank you Secret Santa for taking the time to read this, may you get what you want this Christmas. Enjoy the festivities.
Signed selfish Scotsman.
You know that post might have been written in jest but it proved, strangely, rather liberating. Who knew that shrugging off years of “Och, I don't really know what I want” and surrendering myself to 'I want, I want, I want' brigade could be so much fun. Bring back the 80s! Greed is good!
So what do you want? Go on tell you your secret Santa. Just remember this, I'm not he.
4 comments:
Those sound like perfect gifts; other than needing someone to deal with the thudding neighbour.
I would add some money to the list to pay the bills while gone and to feed and accommodate myself while away.
I thought I was beng selfish enough, I figured a trip round the world with a camera in hand I might just get lucky with a few shots that I could sell, failing that I could blag my poverty and appeal to peoples good nature. How I do that with a hot air balloon I'm not quite sure. I suppose I could offer rides in exchange for cash, hmm maybe I should have thought this through more.
It's a wish list. Your supposed to ask for the moon. Some people even get it.
I have my fingers crossed for enough combined money via gifts to get a camera. Now I just have to decide which I want, er, can afford.
I think I might get enough money for a lense but the camera I'll have to save for myself. I'm determined I'll have done so by March. I'd like the D200 but I'll probably only be able to afford the D80 if I'm lucky.
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