It's time for
Secret Santa!!!

The request was made during the year that we arrange for cards and packages as separate options this year, so after giving it some thought, I'll do it this way:

We'll do the usual gift exchange and I'm sure there will be hint threads and teaser threads, and that is the one that is going to require the most planning. I have last year's list so I'll make sure not to have you exchange gifts with the same party you had last year.

Send a PM telling me you're in, giving me your full name and address (and if you would, arrange the lines the way they're supposed to appear in your mail system). In your PM to me please indicate "Secret Santa gift" so I know where to put your name.

The economy is such around the world that some people have asked to have the option to send a card only, so I'll have a separate file that I'll arrange by continent for those who want to send a card. I don't see any reason why you can't participate in both, but this one won't get the same filtering, so if you want to do get an address to send a card to, send me a PM that says "Holiday Card exchange." I am going to assume that everyone wants to send a card overseas, so I'll send out names on other continents when possible.

Does this make sense?

You can start sending me names for either list now, and I'll plan to send out GIFT SENDING names early November. Let's aim at a deadline of November 1 to let me know if you're in. This site from last year gives a general idea of when to ship if you want to keep your costs down. The USPS has a new inscrutable search engine and gave me no useful results when I searched on a variety of keywords. If someone comes up with this information for this year, please post it. And this is only the US side of things. If some of you on other parts of the planet will post links to when your packages should go out, I'd appreciate it.

I will send the card addresses out after the gift end of things is finished.

Does this sound like it is what people had in mind, and will it work for you the way I've laid it out? If you have adjustments to suggest make them early so we're not tweaking this system at the last minute.

Your Especially Early Holiday Elf

SRS