... to let all you chancers know that there's no MN Secret Santa this year

[BIWI]

Mumsnet is a very different place now, compared to a few years ago, when the lovely Soapy set up the first secret Santa.

It's become a much bigger site, which obviously benefits MNHQ, but it's made a secret Santa untenable.

There have been a lot of rumblings over the last few years from people about whether we want it or not. But ultimately it's become just too big and unmanageable a job for anyone to handle.

So all you chancers who wait until this time each year to post your sob stories no longer need to bother.

I must admit, I hadn't noticed until this week, when all of a sudden there have been an influx of threads about not being able to afford Christmas this year. To be honest, not being able to spend more than a tenner a head on presents (or less than that) isn't the end of the world. That's what charity shops and table-top sales are for. Little kids don't need the latest tablet/iPhone etc and teenagers are old enough to understand financial constraints.

I did offer to PayPal a tenner to someone who had literally no money whatsoever or so they said but got jumped on by loads of other posters telling me I was daft and the thread got whooshed shortly after that, so my tenner went to the local women's refuge instead.

Are people genuinely hoping for handouts though, or are they simply writing their financial concerns down, in the hope that someone maybe able to offer some constructive advice?

Emma - the problem is the posters who do the "what advice do you have? What can I do?", but then take each suggestion and say "Can't do that, can't do that, can't afford that, tried but doesn't work..." etc etc. Then you know damn well they're after hand outs.

I was in dire straits last year for various reasons, and a local FB group donated a food hamper to me and my family. I had never begged in the group or anything like that, I had shared and publicised it for others, not wanting to say what a horrible situation we were in.

Although part of me was mortified and believed there were more deserving people, I will never ever forget that kindness. I cried my eyes out and I've tried to pay it forward every time I could since.

I made a thread couple days ago about how skint I was because a direct debit went out that i was not expecting. Hope people did not think I was in the ponce. Mind you I don't think it got to that as it was fixed pretty fast

They tend to be new to the site ghost

Trolls and scammers bloody ruin everything. The MN Secret Santa was a lovely way to brighten up someones life for a short period.

But it just shows the true shittiness of people when the site does something so great and then the same trolls come back and attack MN a few days after Xmas. I am referring to the NYE when MN couldn't keep up with the deletions as there were too many arses.

Oh I can't tell new from old with a the name changing.

There may have been another way of doing the secret santa. People could have donated as normal the mnhq could have picked out who it gos to.

It just seems such a shame. I read those threads every year and they brought a lump to my throat. True spirit of Christmas. Why do some dishonest fuckers have to spoil everything?

I have been a donator and receiver from MN secret Santa. The little gift I received was very gratefully received and the first Christmas present I had had in ten years (I had just left arse ex) we had nothing at the time. It was a great idea.

BUT it also attracted grabbers. There was the year I had signed up to donate and then been made homeless. I managed to get something small to send as I didn't want to let someone struggling like us kids down and posted it.

Only for the nominee who had been matched with three donators to not receive mine and another ladies gifts yet still before Christmas to come on and post publically that she had only received one of the three peoples gifts and what arseholes we were for not sending anything and how nice it must be for us in our ivory towers mansion not struggling and basically wishing bad stuff on us 😲

Then the same year some people received expensive gifts and vouchers and people moaned that they had got less lavish gifts.

So I'm am not surprised it stopped.

I would say that the person who said about the toy appeals and charities above. We spent several years on the real bones of our backsides when with ex and I wouldn't have known how to get dd a gift from them. Luckily she was young and pleased with small stuff.

I only nominated people who I knew well (as well as you can here) who had just been bloody lovely.

I think the Secret Santa would have been impossible this year. After the hacking crap so many people deregistered and reregistered and name changed. Hard to know who the genuine are.

When I first joined around the mile for Maude time the site was much smaller and I could recognise most posters. Now it is huge.

I almost started a thread myself yesterday about a financial problem I'm having but then thought about how it would look at this time of year, with all the begging threads floating around, and thought better of it.

It is a shame that the scammers have ruined things for others, but I guess it was inevitable.

I liked the aspect of the Secret Santa that people were nominated for being kind and helpful, or perhaps lonely, rather than just hard-up. There are various charities that help people who are really financially struggling, and it's great that there is a campaign to help Women's Aid this year too, but it was nice that there was also a way of appreciating people who wouldn't be eligible for anything like that, but yet for whom small gifts might have been really welcome. Sometimes it can be incredibly lonely at Christmas, for people who don't have children and just feel on the outside of it all. Or who don't have much family. etc., and just having something that says 'you matter' or something that is a surprise - the way other people get surprises from partners or children - gives a really good feeling. But it doesn't mean the person is hard-up or couldn't afford to buy something themselves - it's different. And similarly with the idea of giving something to people who had helped a lot on a thread. Sometimes posters do get really involved with threads, and spend a lot of time helping someone, researching things, supporting them, etc., and a way to acknowledge that with a little surprise gift is lovely.

So I think it's a shame that it has to stop entirely, and that there isn't a way to make those sorts of reasons the critera, rather than financial need/hard times, to discourage the chancers and begging posts. But I appreciate that it would be hard to arrange.

I did think the other day that I felt for people who actually have a problem they want to post, muminthecity.

It'll come to the point that one has to say "please don't offer to send me money or stuff" when asking for advice/ having a rant. That would be almost as tedious as the bloody "lighthearted" people often add now to signify that they don't actually want to kill the kids...

I agree with BIWI. I must be very hard/cynical because some of the threads seem obvious begging threads imo and I don't really understand how some posters cannot see it.
Anyway, there was a poster last year who was collecting shoe boxes containing gifts/essentials for women and children in refuges. That was a very worthwhile cause. I haven't seen one this year but will watch out for it.

It is a shame.

Maybe we can have a thanking each other on a post thread for Christmas or something a bit less shit than that

I think it's inevitable that the Christmas Appeal won't work now. The site really is too big.

So it's time to move on, and MNHQ have said that they're going to launch another way for people to give/help at Christmas, which is lovely.

However, I really to take issue with those who are asserting on this thread that it was for cronies, or that people who didn't need money benefitted financially from it

Initially it was about nominating people who were deserving - i.e. they were having a really hard time (which didn't have to be financial - it could have been to do with their health, or their relationships, or a work problem).

When MNHQ took it on, it also developed to become something where people could nominate other MNetters who they thought had made some positive contribution to the site/other posters. I thought that was a really lovely way to evolve the whole thing - that we could find a way to thank people like Ratherbeonthepiste or KnottyLocks (as an example) for all the time and commitment that they were investing in something like Woolly Hugs.

But that seemed to really irritate people. I wonder if there was a bitterness and envy afoot here?

Mummyme1987 that is a lovely idea for your neighbours but can I suggest doing it a few days before Christmas Eve? Otherwise the person may have run themselves ragged getting a few bits for Christmas Day and had all the associated stress and uncertainty that goes with it. Dropping it off a few days in advance gives them a nice peace of mind also, and they can factor it into their planning and maybe use the few pounds they intended for food for something else. a few days stress-free is probably worth as much to them as the gift itself.

I'm astonished people came on to complain that they didn't get enough - either gifts or thanks It's clearly been a lovely thing while it lasted so I hope it hasn't been too soured by the unpleasantness. There are lots of great ways to give and MN can still get behind things like the Refuge gift list.

Well this thread really does sum it all up lately

a couple of years ago i got a secret santa off a mumsnet member totally out of the blue, i dont know why i got it may have been because i contributed to a poor thread or two telling the truth at the time about how little one can run a house on each month, (was single and poor) or it may have been because i was a prolific and useful poster on litter tray at the time, as i say i dont know why i got it but it was vouchers which i bought winter boots with at shoezone and am still wearing this winter

I am not surprised by the begging threads, another forum I am on gets them all the time too. All year round though, usually 'where can i get a £10 payday loan as i have no electric for the meter' type of thing.

oh and the year i got my SS i tried to post on the thank you thread and couldnt use my own mumsnet name and it wouldnt accept the name mumsnet had given me so whoever sent mine probably thinks im an ungrateful person when im not it was a lovely surprise at the end of what had been 3 horrible months for me at the time

I wouldn't care but if someone genuinely needed it I would quite happily donate DD's old clothes and toys.

It's just unfortunate we can't tell who's genuine. I don't doubt there's people on here who really need help. The Salvation Army gets them at least I know they are going to a deserving home.

Quite a few posters support WoollyHugs, BIWI, without a Secret Santa, they just get on with it. Sorry, but your last post just sounded like petulant foot-stamping. Set up a 'secret santa' thing yourself if you want to maybe.

The site has got too big for this kind of more personal thing and just because you're not happy with that doesn't mean that posters aren't still very much involved with posters individually, doing stuff for them as and when.

It's not an 'all or nothing' thing but I know that the money I have available for charity or for things like WoollyHugs isn't bottomless, I wish it were, but as it isn't, I'm going to prioritise those over doing a secret santa for someone who has been nominated by someone else, and may well not even need or use whatever the thing I would buy for them. What's the point of that?

I really don't get it actually; if you think so much of somebody so much as to nominate them, why don't you get them something yourself and send it to them?

I don't think that 'things' are half as important as telling somebody that you think a lot of them - and you can do that via a PM, who knows where that leads? I have quite a few people that I regularly PM with.