Welcome everyone to the official Secret Santa thread for 2019! The first year we had 61 participants, last year was 113 participants. This year we ended up with 147 participants, so it looks like we're doing something right and people are enjoying this!

Since the last two years went off without a hitch, I'm not going to change anything. I closed the old thread since the registration time frame has now passed and I opened 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. Today and tomorrow 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. 18, 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 Monday, Dec. 16th for shipping so all items have a chance to get there by Christmas Eve. You can and should ship them out much sooner as soon as they are ready to go though. You can wrap the gifts individually if you want and send them in one big box 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 and they won't know who it is from. When you do send your gifts, please send me a PM or e-mail 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, this is an important one...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. Lots of people are very proud of what they buy for you with their hard earned money, so please take a moment to post pictures after opening and say a quick thank you!

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. Maybe search their old posts, check out any pictures or their Pinside story if they have one.
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 with 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 and let the games begin!

2019 Secret Santas:

1 2Kaulitz
2 acitti
3 action76
4 Aflacjack
5 alexmogil
6 amkoepfer
7 Arcade
8 Asylum
9 Atari_Daze
10 atrainn
11 balt
12 bbriese
13 BertoDRINK1
14 bicyclenut
15 biglaw
16 blondetall
17 BlueIrocGuy
18 bowz
19 Brypten
20 BubbaBeast
21 Captainhook
22 Charliew65
23 Cheberha
24 Chisox
25 chubtoad13
26 Coindork
27 Coz
28 Crumbalimb
29 Daditude
30 DanieB
31 davidlldennis
32 dc2010
33 Dee-Bow
34 Derick2k
35 dnapac
36 docquest
37 dondon4720
38 drbrain
39 EasternBloc
40 easye9901
41 Ericc123
42 FatPanda
43 Fezmid
44 fiberdude120
45 fnosm
46 fosaisu
47 fxdwg
48 gentrsa
49 Gexchange
50 gliebig
51 grantopia
52 Gritty
53 Heypresto86
54 HighVoltage
55 hogbog
56 homegameroom
57 HotPieceOfSass
58 Insane
59 ismiglif
60 Isochronic_Frost
61 j_m_
62 Jaeg
63 Jawa
64 jedi42
65 jellikit
66 jesperpark
67 Jgel
68 joefox22
69 joelw23
70 jp1985
71 JRBBRJ
72 Jvspin
73 KingPinGames
74 Lame33
75 Leeb18509
76 LesManley
77 Liftserv
78 LoganJK
79 luckycreature
80 Magicchiz
81 mario_1_up
82 Matesamo
83 matiou
84 merccat
85 mickey
86 modfather
87 MrMikeman
88 MrsPin
89 Mudflaps
90 Murphdom
91 MurphyPeoples
92 Muskie82
93 nascarrey
94 NeilMcRae
95 Nevus
96 newovad
97 newtoit
98 Nihonmasa
99 nogoodnames222
100 northvibe
101 notherndude
102 Outlanes
103 pacmanretro
104 Pball
105 Pdxmonkey
106 Pinballlew
107 pinballplusMN
108 pinmaniac
109 Pinmasher
110 Pinsterwmass
111 Pinzap
112 puck
113 pzy
114 RCA1
115 RobertWinter
116 rodcom
117 Sarversystems
118 shovelhed
119 Sijcolo
120 silen7ce
121 SKWilson
122 SkyKing2301
123 Soapman
124 sp005
125 Stosel
126 stpcore
127 TaylorVA
128 the96stang
129 tomdotcom
130 TonyScoots
131 TrixTrix
132 troxel
133 undrdog
134 V_piscopo
135 Waderade812
136 wdpvideo
137 Wharhed
138 Whysnow
139 Wolfmarsh
140 Wondermellon
141 Xerico
142 ZEN
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Working on it this weekend. Everyone should an e-mail by Monday morning.

Quick Update: With this many participants, e-mails are taking longer than I thought, so I'm going to need today to finish getting them out. I'll post back here when they are all out to let everyone know. Thanks.

If you aren't on the list, I will make sure to add you.

We had some late entries so we are up to 147 participants now this year!

E-mails are going out now. It's a manual process so everyone should have their SS info within the next couple of hours, so please keep an eye out for them. I'll post again when the last e-mail is sent.

I did.

All e-mails have been sent out. If I didn't have your e-mail address, you should have a PM from me. If any issues come up, please let me know right away. Post here when you ship and send me an e-mail with the tracking number so I can mark you as shipped on my list and please remember to also post when your SS package arrives so your sender knows that you got it safely. Last day for shipping is Dec. 18th, but you can and should ship well before that date. I think that should be everything, so...
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