If you are anything like the employees of the Portland Mercury, you freaking hate your office’s annual “Secret Santa” gift exchange. Why? Here’s why! It takes too goddamn long! And it takes even longer if your officemates are encouraged to “steal” gifts that have already been opened. That’s why during the Mercury‘s “Secret Santa” ceremony, we employ the “Unfuckwithable Wm. Steven Humphrey Rules of Secret Santa Order!”
DON’T SCOFF, A-HOLE! This shit works—we finished this year’s 20 person Secret Santa is 11 minutes and 46 seconds FLAT. I AM NOT SHITTING YOU.
Anyway, here are the official “Unfuckwithable Wm. Steven Humphrey Rules of Secret Santa Order!” which you are free to use for your own Secret Santa celebration as long as you announce it as the “Unfuckwithable Wm. Steven Humphrey Rules of Secret Santa Order!”
1) Pile up the prezzies, and assign everyone a number.
2) Announce to everyone the following rules:
2a. “This Secret Santa will be finished in 20 minutes, or I get to keep any unwrapped gifts.”
2b. “When I call your number you will have 10 seconds to make your way to the front and choose your present—at 11 seconds, I get your present.”
2c. “When you choose a present, you have 20 seconds to unwrap it, hold it over your head, and loudly announce what your present is. At 21 seconds, I keep your present.”
2d. “You may steal someone else’s present, but you only have 10 seconds to steal and hold up your stolen gift. THAT PRESENT CAN ONLY BE STOLEN TWICE. If that present is stolen three times, I keep that present.”
3) Use a stopwatch, and after you call the number, loudly count down how many seconds each person has left. This gets everyone very excited, bloodthirsty, and most importantly, for once in their goddamn lives they pay attention to the proceedings.
In the best case scenario, the “Unfuckwithable Wm. Steven Humphrey Rules of Secret Santa Order!” provides a far more palatable Secret Santa that lasts a reasonable length of time. In the worst case scenario, you go home with a poop-ton of gifts. WIN, WIN, WIN.
What you describe above is a White Elephant gift exchange. Secret Santa is where everyone draws a name and then gets that person a gift.
Current Score:
Luckymike – 1
Steve – 0
Are those metric seconds or imperial seconds?
I want to see this post with every occurrence of “Secret Santa” crossed out and updated!
Around my house we do a “Secret Bieber” party. Everyone brings their favorite Justin Bieber memorabilia and we exchange them while singing along to YouTube.
Call it what you want, dickbones. It’s still the best!
This sounds like a lot of fun. Do you follow it with a forced march?
Did anyone else see the Humphrey family Christmas Card with young WSH on the mercury boxes today ?
THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS IN PDX
by Sir Charles Myers
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a modest mouse;
The vintage stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Isaac soon would be there;
The children were drinking PBR in their beds,
While visions of fixed-gear feminazis danced in their heads;
And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
I rested in the loo to take a vegan crap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a noise,
It was meth heads grinding their teeth: Gresham Boyz.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
As the first thing they would come for would be my stash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of a bag of baby powder cut blow,
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a giant Prius, and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and nicely,
We all “Float On” because it’s so timely.
More rapid than eagles his courses they came,
And he pogoed, and shouted, and called them by name;
“Now, Eric! now, Jeremiah! now, Joe and Tom!
Johnny Marr just took a shit on my motherfucking lawn!
To the top of the Rose Quarter! to the top of Mt Tabor!
I am not a poet but a chronic masturbator!”
As Saint Cupcakes before the wild hurricane fly,
At Holocene a pretty girl caught my eye
I approached her and I gave her some Jager
Who knew she’d be pregnant 24 hours later?
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
And smelt a breath that was at least 80 proof
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Isaac came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
In a house of Peta activists, I knew he’d get the boot
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler selling crack on the MAX
His eyes — how they gleamed! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like Vicodin, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as my coke;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
The marijuana smoke encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of KY jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
He ripped out a fart that almost rendered me dead;
He lisped not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
“Vegan cookies on a plate from Trader Joes!”
He gobbled them all–up the chimney he rose
He sprang to his Prius, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, as he drove out of sight,
“Happy Christmas to PDX, have a great fuckin night.”