Reddit Gift Exchange: Secret Santa

A dear friend of mine encouraged me this year to join redditgifts.  Since I have the wonderful habit of taking up what he suggests because it ends up becoming fun (like blogging and the mcchris message board) I did it.  This will be my first time being a part of a gift exchange through redditgifts.  I have been a part of other Secret Santa exchanges and after I got burned once I have had a sour attitude about it.  This was from a gal I had known for a long time on the mcchris message board.  She even promised to make it up to me and never did.  Yeah I am still a little sore about it, so what?!

I read up on redditgifts and this site has a sort of safety feature if you will.  If your Secret Santa is a douche bag flake, piece of shit (okay maybe I am alotta sore about it still) you can be rematched with a kind-hearted soul that WILL gift you.  I also have the option to volunteer as a rematcher, you know being a kind-hearted person and all.  With redditgifts you get credits, so after my giftee obtains her gift I can go on to other redditgift exchanges if I so desire.  If I fail (which I won't since I shipped the gift yesterday) then I will be negative in credits and verboten from future exchanges.

I opted for an international giftee, turns out my gal is from Canada.  So I did my shopping for her, you are supposed to send a 20 dollar value gift.  I think I did fairly well with finding gift(s) on sale for her.  I even had time to craft up a blank charm bracelet and necklace for her.

Failing at using my new camera. Sorry for the quality, I am learning!

 My gal is a crafter so I gathered some random craft goodies, archival marker/pens, socks and a beanie to fight the winter, a cute penguin watch with matching coin purse and a candle holder.  So I might have gone a teensy bit overboard but not too much.  Is it sad that the gift value was almost on par with the shipping price?  No.  What's sad is that FedEx is now cheaper than US Post for packages to Canada.  That's sad!

In case you are wondering 3lbs, 6x7x9 to Canada from California is $31.31.

And as a previous UPS employee I gotta say, their website sucks.  You get much more functionality on FedEx's site and even more shipping options.  Hooray for FedEx!  I will be sure to post a video or picture of my gift(s) when it arrives.  Tonight I will work on getting my second Secret Santa gift boxed up and ready to ship tomorrow.  Do you participate in Secret Santa/Gift Exchanges and have you ever been burned?  Speaking of burned, I hate the White Elephant game.  The district office has a yearly White Elephant game and I think again this year I will secretly disappear and do actual work instead of get wrapped up in a crazy game.