How to win at Stealing Santa

To me a "win" is giving a great present to someone who'll enjoy it, and not being wasteful. That can be tricky with these games.

What is Stealing Santa?

It's a version of secret santa played at workplaces or in extended families. Each person contributes a gift, and draws a number to determine the order of play.

Player one selects a gift and opens it. Each following player opens a gift and can keep it or (forcibly) swap it with any already-opened gift. The last player has the choice of all the gifts.

Why I hate this game

Clearly it runs totally against the idea of buying a present for a specific person who you have thought about and brought something that would suit that person. Also, giving gifts for an unknown recipient often results in unwanted and wasteful purchases, sometimes thrown away.

Why I love this game

If played well, the worst outcome is neutral and the best outcome can be someone getting a gift they love. What? Let me explain.

My wife didn't want to go in this game at her office, for very good reasons about waste and consumerism. But there's office social pressure to join in, so we devised a winning strategy so that she can take part in the social aspect but without the negative consequences.

What to contribute

I heard some people take along a gift they want themself. When their turn comes, they either pick it from the pile, or swap for it.

Our variation is that my wife took a re-gift - it's a really great gift but something she already had one of. (That's win number one - no extra consumerism required).

When her turn came, she picked it from the pile and explained what it was. It turned out to be the perfect present for someone else. When their turn came, they quickly swapped to get it.

Success. The gift ended up in the hands of someone who really wanted it, will put it to good use and get great value from it.

A double win

Apart from finding a good home for the re-gift, my wife also ended up with a present that she likes and will use.

That was an extra bonus, not in our plan. We think the solar light will work well for our balcony. If not, it can always go back into the game next year ;)

A word about re-gifting

Sometimes a gift is a good idea, but you already have the exact same thing. Or it doesn't suit you for a particular reason, that the giver wouldn't know. Sometimes we sell these items (get our tips for that) but re-gifting is another option.

Comments

Your Money or Your Life

Which is more important? Our money or our life? So why do we trade away so much of our life? Vicki Robin's classic book takes an in-depth look at how we can have a better relationship with money. Here are some of my highlights, though there's so much more great value in the book. I found it so inspirational after reading the foreword and the first chapter. While the backbone of the book is a 9-step plan, there are two concepts that really stand out - even if you never start the plan. One is the idea of "life energy" and our "real hourly wage". The other is the point of enough. Life Energy What is money? Vicki Robin comes to the conclusion that it is a form of life energy. It might sound a bit new-age, but it's like the old business saying "time is money". We exchange our time, and our physical and mental energy to get this thing called money. So when we use it we are effectively spending our life. The exchange rate Spending money is almost like...

The real cost of owning a car

It's been about 10 years since I've owned a car. My wife doesn't own one either. "You must save a lot in petrol" That's one of the frequent reactions when someone discovers we don't own a car. "Of course, but it's just the tip of the iceberg" is the usual theme of my reply. Many people I've talked to just aren't fully aware of the real cost of owning a car. Or even that there are six different costs of owning a car. Six? Really? Yes. Occasionally a work colleague or friend will boast their car only costs $X per week. Of course it turns out only some factors have been counted. Sometimes it's just petrol alone. To some people, that feels like the only cost they pay each week. Why does this matter? You might be questioning the need for a second car in the household (or even having one at all). Or you might just be choosing which car to get next. Either way, to make an informed decision we need proper information. So let's look at...

Where is the best place to live?

Where we live determines a lot about our life. So today I'm going to share a resource that can help you decide where might be a good place to live. It started with an article ranking Brisbane suburbs from 1 to 260 . That ranking was based on a set of 17 factors. Here are some of them. But all 17 may not be relevant for you. And some might matter more than others. So they developed a tool where you can rank the 5 factors most important to you and it will give you a personalised list of Brisbane suburbs that would be the best for you - based on those factors. There are also Sydney and Melbourne versions. On the results page, there's also a map that colour-codes each suburb by star rating, for each factor. For instance here's the map for public transport. Five-star suburbs are in blue. When you click on a suburb, you get the name and the star rating of that suburb - for whichever factor you select. I find this to be so enlightening. I choose not to own a car. Some...

But wait... there's less!

Search This Blog