Welcome everyone to the official Secret Santa thread for 2017! We ended up with 61 participants! I decided to close the old thread since registration is now closed and open up this thread to keep things clean and streamlined. We can use this thread to post announcements, questions, updates, ship dates and of course to show off all our ill gotten booty that we receive from our secret santas.
Here's how things are going to go. This weekend I will assign everyone a number and go down the list and randomly draw a secret santa for every participant. I should have everyone's e-mail address, so I will send an e-mail to each person with the name and information I have for who you are to buy gifts for. If they gave me any gift ideas or a list of the games they own that they don't display to the public, I will include those as well. If you don't receive an e-mail from me by Monday, Nov. 13, please PM me. You then will have about a month to purchase gifts and ship them out to your SS. The cut off date will be Dec. 12th for shipping so all items have a chance to get there by Christmas Eve. You can wrap the gifts if you want and send them or even have them directly shipped to your SS if you want to save some money that way. Please do not include your name on the return address no matter what method you choose, use the name "Pinside Secret Santa" instead. That way everyone will know when your package arrives, but won't know who it is from. When you do send your gifts, please post in this thread saying so and send me a PM with the tracking information so I can add it to my sheet and cross it off the list. When your SS package arrives, please post in this thread too so the sender knows you got it safe and sound. And of course, after you open your SS package, post the money shots of all your goodies here and give a proper thank you shout out to your Secret Santa for doing their part to spread a little holiday cheer.
Now, I wish it went without saying, but we need to cover some ground rules just in case...
*First off, this will be as fun as we make it. If we put in some effort, everyone should have a good time. Please check your SS's public game list on pinside and the ideas they included (if any) and do some creative investigation. You are free to buy what you want, you don't have to get anything that your SS may have suggested for gifts, but please just put the same amount of thought into your gifts that you would want someone to put into the gifts for you and things should be fine.
*On that note, no public bitching on pinside about what you receive, that isn't the point of this. This is supposed to be about giving, spreading some joy and adding a little of that childhood magic back into the holidays again. If you really wanted an official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle...but got a football instead...be thankful for what you received, or at least fake it like you would with your in-laws.
*The dollar amount you should aim for when buying gifts is at least $30. That is not a hard cap by any means. Tis the season, so you can spend as much as you feel comfortable with, but please at least hit that number value wise so no one is short changed from a dollar standpoint.
*I will keep track of who shipped packages and when they were shipped. I will send out a reminder to anyone I haven't heard from 1 week before the deadline, but PLEASE, be responsible and buy your gifts and ship them out before the deadline so we don't run into issues with having to track people down and recipients not getting packages in time.
*No dead beat Santas. If you don't think you can fulfill your end of the bargain for whatever reason, please contact me and I can remove your name from the list now no questions asked. Nothing would be worse for this than someone not following through and leaving someone empty handed. By participating, you are agreeing to be responsible and fulfill your obligation to the recipient. I know unexpected things can happen, so if a Santa runs into any issues, notify me immediately please. The sooner I am made aware, the sooner I can figure a solution to the issue. Once again, if a Santa fails to follow through, and does not contact me ahead of time (to solve the issue), I will have no problem outing them to the pinside community and we all know how merciless this community can be. This is the only warning you will receive for this, so please let's not have to go there.
Any other questions, feel free to post in this thread or PM me and I would be happy to help. That should just about cover it, so put on those Santa hats and get ready for the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny #%&$@ Kaye!
Secret Santas for 2017:
Aflacjack
anthonyk
Artimage
Astropin
Ben1981
blondetall
Brypten
BubbaBeast
Capinball
Charliew65
chippe01
Clnilsen
Dexter
docquest
EEE
Ericc123
EvanDickson
Fezmid
fiberdude120
flashinstinct
Gexchange
gliebig
Gundam_Pilot
Haymaker
High Protein
High Voltage
HighNoon
Hogbog
HotPieceOfSass
Insane
Isochronic_Frost
j_m_
jeffc
joefox22
Lame33
LesManley
ltg
Mank
Matesamo
modfather
northvibe
Ns2973
pacmanretro
Pdxmonkey
Pinballlew
PinballSTAR
PinZap
pmWolf
RobertWinter
RyanClaytor
SarverSystems
stpcore
suave84
TaylorVA
the96stang
ULEKstore
wdpvideo
Whysnow
Wolfmarsh
ypurchn
ZEN