The holidays are anything but relaxing by default. The entire extended family is all in one place (yikes). There are gifts to be bought for loved ones who, come to think of it, don’t have any of the same interests that I do, and the same food from Thanksgiving is waiting to be made all over again. The perfect cherry to top this peppermint-flavored stress sundae is a small card with the name of a person whom you’ve only spoken to twice, and the month-long search for a gift.
As an individual who has been unemployed for the past 18 years, Secret Santa is a lot of pressure when the maximum price is over $20. You’re telling me the employed person who had the misfortune of pulling my name may drop $30 on a quality gift; meanwhile, I’m handing my person a gift card that’ll only cover one grande Starbucks drink, and maybe a handmade card depending on how well I know them? It’s embarrassing for me, it’s uncomfortable for everyone else, but it’s especially unfortunate for the person I had who easily could’ve spent ten times more than I did on this game.
Christmas has come to feel like a financial obligation to the people around us, rather than acts of thoughtfulness that make loved ones feel special on a day meant to celebrate love, unity, and community; Which are the original values that make the holiday, excluding its religious counterparts. The game of Secret Santa highlights that obligation. Rather than taking the time to find or create a gift tailored to a person you care about, you are now frantically scouring the mall for the most neutral gift you can find. There’s a kind of insincerity behind that style of gift-giving that’s felt by the receiver upon opening their present.
It’s even worse when the Secret Santa consists of cards that list exactly what the receiver would want, at that point, no thought is being put in at all, and the gift giver is simply following a command. Listing what each person wants also puts pressure on people like me who simply have no money. Someone may want something extremely out of their gift-giver budget, yet they joined the game willing to spend that amount themselves. This creates an unfair dynamic where people are giving more than they can, yet nobody is receiving much.
A more thoughtful way to spend the holidays is to find gifts that you know the receiver will enjoy, appreciate, and keep; otherwise, the entire holiday can become extremely wasteful. Most thoughtless gifts end up being given away, thrown away, or tucked in a drawer. It would be in everyone’s best interest regarding time, wallets, and efforts, to simply reserve gift-giving for the people in their lives who they feel deserve it: people who they’d feel comfortable splurging on and people who they know well enough to give a meaningful gift to. Otherwise, Christmas becomes nothing more than a big obligation and burden.
