Christmas Lists

There was a time when the entire family used to get together for Christmas and all the adults would draw a name from a hat for who they would buy a gift the following Christmas.   In order to know what the person wanted we would exchange Christmas Lists which were due by Thanksgiving to my Mom - the central depot and the matriarch of the family.  She would sent out the lists to all and there were no rules other than you had to buy one gift within the dollar limit to the one individual whose name you drew from the hat. But it did not preclude you from buying other gifts for people should you chose to do so (since you had their list).  This methodology assured you would get at least one gift. 

I enjoyed this exercise and took great joy in creating lists that had many items to chose from. People like to give what they like so the more items meant there was greater probability of gifts :)

Also the tradition in our family was that all gifts were wrapped and marked FROM:  SANTA.  In other words, you never knew who your gift came from.  Naturally there were years people screwed up and forgot their name, lost the slip of paper, a duplicate gift was given etc. etc.  But this made it even more exciting in trying to figure out the mystery of who had whose name and who screwed up.

Also this no "FROM" identity allowed  a creative person like me to buy and wrap a gift I wanted to give myself without anyone knowing that I purchased it myself :) 

And who knows - if you still believe in Santa (as I do), then Santa may still be the culprit That's why my list always had some big ticket items just in case.

Never skimp on the Christmas List :)