Mumsnet Christmas Appeal/Secret Santa - your thoughts please?

[JustineMumsnet]

Hi all,

It's that time of year again where we are looking towards Christmas and thinking about the annual Mumsnet Secret Santa.

For those of you who've no clue what we're on about, the Mumsnet Christmas Appeal is an annual (obviously) tradition in which MNers nominate other MNers whom they feel to be particularly deserving of support/reward/love to receive a Secret Santa gift. More about it here - and here's how it works plus some FAQs, too.

As we said, it has a long and honourable history on MN - but some have suggested that now we've got Giving Week we should think about retiring the Secret Santa.

So we thought we'd take this opportunity to ask you, before we launch it as usual, if you'd like us to continue with it. We do love helping with the Secret Santa and the thankyou thread is always a very moving read, but it's quite a mammoth thing to organise and there have been a number of complaints about gifts not arriving and/or a lack of thankyou messages which has put a slight dampener on it in recent years.

In short we're happy to stop if folks think it has run its course - and happy to continue if people still think it's worthwhile.

We'd be very grateful for any and all thoughts. Please do post them here.

I think vezzie has summed it up brilliantly.

Good points vezzie

I'm with vezzie - excellent summary.

How did I miss this last year? It sounds lovely don't give it up!

Do not ditch secret Santa!

Fillybuster - please tell me someone didn't ask for a £50 john lewis voucher to go towards something expensive? I'm beyond shocked if that it's the case.

I like the secret santa, in that it has given me a chance to send a token gift or nominate for someone else to send a gift, and thank people who have given me amazing advice and support. I don't think it should be about 'need', but a way of saying thanks or an acknowledgement that someone has had a tough year.

I do think the size and nature of the gifts is wrong, and maybe it should be like the secret santas at work etc, where a set amount is specified, so everyone can spend no more than £5 or £10, and a card. When I got a gift this year, the wording in the card kind of meant more than the gift (although the gift was lovely!) because it was to me the best of mumsnet - people who don't know each other in rl, holding out a hand, giving advice and making each other laugh.

I also think it should be just for the mumsnetters not the children. To me, it is kind of wierd to be sent a list of how many children and what ort of things are appropriate/inappropriate for children that you don't know. I also find it hard to explain to the children.

So after all that waffling - I think it should be kept simple - a secret santa which is an anonymous 'token' gift and card to just the mumsnetter of the house.

(Oh and a proper appeal would be great but probably a nightmare to organise - something like Toys for Christmas? Good used, but unwanted toys donated to a charity? Although I have no idea if such a charity exists?!)

We could have a local MN collection day for good used toys to be taken to a central collection point named by the Local Ed, followed by transport on to the local refuge/Home Start/refugee centre. That would justify MNHQ staff time. The collection point could be the home of any MNer, or church hall, or whatever.

But it's not just kids, or people with kids getting nominated. Which I don't think people always realise.

I would prefer a toy collection coordinated locally so it can tie in with a local charity. And the a £10 round robin secret Santa thing that's a bit of fun for all involved.

I've not been involved before because it looked like hassle but if it was a case of mumsnet has partnered with M&S to do a toy collection, leave a gift into a store and it will be sent to x, y, z charity.

At the end of the day we really don't know who is behind the usernames and whether they are "deserving" or not.

As an aside, if you are nominated can you decline receiving anything?

Yes, you can decline Wips. Either by not responding to the PM/email from MNHQ in the first place - or you can respond, but say that you feel that you don't want anything sent to you.

I think the thing with the toy collection going through local channels is that it's done already. Where I live, there's a TV, media appeal to buy an extra gift at Christmas from baby right through to late teens I think. You can drop it off at Sainsburys, local banks etc. Its run jointly by Salvation Army and St Vincent take all. It's the same with the kids schools, there's gifts, hampers, donations made up for local food banks, elderly charities.

I'm not sure Giving Week would work the best at Christmas. The MN Secret Santa - I quite like it, I've participated over a couple of years but I'm not married to it.

absolutely wip - nominees have to give their addresses and MNHQ aren't going to force anyone to do so if they don't want to

I love this part of mumsnet. In the last when we've been given the users name - I looked through previous posts and Tailored my gifts to them (ie ds was obsessed with Lego)

I think their should be a maximum value on the items to stop people feeling pressurised to spend more and / or people getting jealous and not happy with what they have got.

If people really want to help other MNers, it makes sense to do it locally. Rather than very publicly all over Active Convos.

I like the idea of a partnership with M&S - they already do secondhand recycling with clothing, they could do the same with toys, hand in hand with MN; Argos did it last year wtih Barnardos.

Or we could all just give each other a fiver and stick it in a glittery Xmas card with some friendly goodwill wishes.

Or Justine could send us all a fiver, and Sandy could home-make the Xmas cards with glitter and shit.

I wouldn't be sad to see it go. I've never been involved in any way. I hate to see the fall-out threads.

Perhaps I don't feel as invested in Mumsnet as others. If one of my rl Mumsnet mates was having a terrible time and I thought could do with cheering up via a gift from me, I would send it at any time, not just Christmas.

And I wouldn't send a gift to a stranger! Perhaps that's incredibly tight of me?

MollyAir that's a great idea, I'd definitely donate x

Cider (and others), just to clarify: no-one demanded a fifty quid voucher.

But first you volunteer, and state what you're offering. So I signed up to do 3 secret santas this year, because I think its a great scheme and have loved being able to do something lovely for complete strangers over the years - I've received so much love and support and advice on MN, so love being able to put something back.

I offered vouchers, as I had noticed over the last couple of years a move towards that, along with some personalised gifts. I sort of assumed that MNHQ would do some matching of things offered against need/requirements (which was definitely probably unrealistic), so that the vouchers would go to someone who would actually benefit from them.

Anyway, you get the detalls, and the MNer had said something like 'vouchers would be most useful' or something. So I increased the amount I spent on their vouchers and skipped the other stuff.

And yes, I was a bit when they told me they had bought themselves a lovely Diptyque candle, or something, with the money, as I would never do that for myself But then, isn't part of the point to just do something lovely for someone else? In which case, I guess it worked But yes, I did feel a bit about the whole thing. But that's not their fault, probably mine....

I'm on the fence.

In past years it has been a lovely thing, but last year it was awful. However, in between all the nasty stuff there were still lovely 'Thank you' posts from people who just felt so happy to have had someone think about them and send them something. Lots of people on MN don't get a gift from anyone at Christmas, so getting a book and a box of chocolates just made them feel cared about. So lovely :) Sadly, a lot of people were ungrateful widgets.

I would love it if I could choose who I was sending my gift to. How about than MN

Surely you can just send a present, then? What part of it do you need MNHQ to do?