MY SECRET SANTA

24 December 2020

I've been debating about whether or not to write about my gift from my Secret Santa.

Several years ago, as the kids started to be adults, we stopped buying gifts for everyone in the family and instead at Thanksgiving, we drew names for the one person we would buy a gift for that Christmas (I never paid attention to the rules since I always bought for everybody anyway). 

When we started not having Thanksgiving dinner together, Marta took on the task of pulling names and letting each of us know who our Secret Santa was for the year.  (She was able to be bribed if you had a special gift you had purchased for someone!)

The other day, a package came, addressed to me, from Amazon.  We have gotten a lot of boxes from Amazon, addressed to either Marta or me and of course I opened this one because I didn't know which order I had placed was arriving.

On Thanksgiving we had our big family Zoom.  I don't like Zooms because I have to do them on my cell phone and it's difficult to keep up with who is talking.  So I added a camera for my desktop monitor to my Amazon wish list.

And, when I opened the Amazon package, there it was.  A camera for my desktop monitor.

Packed with the camera was a note saying that it was from my Secret Santa...and that I should not open it until Christmas.  But, of course, the only way I could see the note not to open it was to open it!

So I had the gift and knew it was from my Secret Santa, but didn't know who my Secret Santa was.  Fortunately, I have Marta in house and she let me know that my Secret Santa was Olivia, Walt's sister-in-law (thanks, Olivia!)

It was actually good that I accidentally opened the Christmas gift, because Ned was able to set it up for me and we could test it out.  Great camera!

I texted Jeri that she should set up a Zoom call to see if I could connect...and I could.  We had a nice chat and she was able to help me figure out a few more things on the full screen Zoom, like how to share screen...

(Look at the puzzle pieces in the puzzle Jeri is working now...they are all the same shape!)

Having had the chance to practice with Jeri makes me feel much better about our upcoming Christmas Zoom, which the girls are arranging and which will be much more pleasant on the big computer screen than on my tiny cell phone.

In the afternoon, we got all of our Christmas gifts wrapped and under the tree, including gifts that were sent by Jeri & Phil, Tom's family and Walt's sister and her husband.  We have plans for tomorrow that include a Zoom bean taco dinner with Marta's family, and driving around town looking at lights.  Just like every other year, all from safe distancing.

Merry almost-Christmas.