There have been several people wearing the esteemed Santa hat - and numerous charts worked out to keep track of who has given to whom. As numbers dwindle it is more difficult to always assign a new Santa. "Act surprised!" is a good piece of advice here. There are considerations we need to keep in mind for this global mudcat event, like the length of time it takes for parcels to travel around the world. Some of them move at a snail's pace, especially as we get closer to the Big Day (whichever date that happens to be for your family - xmas eve, xmas day, boxing day, or some non-xtian holiday reckoning around that time.)

My particular goal is to choose items that aren't particularly fragile, that are interesting but small, and that I can ship in one of the postal large envelopes or small boxes to keep the shipping price reasonable. The sooner you ship the slower your parcel can travel, so you can keep prices down.

This is also an exchange between people who came to be here because of music, so often times determining musical taste and including a suitable CD is an excellent start to gift giving. Shipping within the US is easier (for me); shipping to Canada or the UK or other Mudcat outposts means declaring the contents. And on occasion participants in the UK have had to pay taxes to collect their parcels - something we would all like to avoid (if someone from the UK could chime in and tell us how to describe the contents, for example - is it enough to say "gift," or is there more to it?)

Here's the Secret Santa "teaser" thread from 2012, to give you an idea of how that part of it works. Here's an earlier one, and so on.

There was a bit of spam (removed) by someone cautioning against sending your information to strangers. That's not what this is. Most of us have been talking amongst ourselves for years, and though we may not have all met in person, we've taken a good measure and enjoyed each other's virtual company. This is an extension of that.