Another yearly event had to be tweaked because of the pandemic: My friends and I had our annual Christmas wish list revelation via Zoom yesterday evening.
It’s been our long-time tradition to meet for our Secret Santa event every year since 2011, but planning around it with all these restrictions due to COVID posed a challenge. It’s clear that we’ll have to do away with the eat-out because of the dine-in limitations in place—which was a bummer—when all four of us look forward to these rare times we get to meet up. There’s also that challenge on how to go about with the actual exchange of gifts.
Even then, we do our pairing via an online gift exchange so we already knew who our giftee was as early as September. Enough time was given to come up with our list and post it on our event’s Facebook page. We also agreed that for this year, we’ll have the gifts sent via motorcycle delivery apps on the day itself.
I didn’t realize that it will be nerve-wracking until I encountered a problem sending my gift to Jen, who’s my recipient this year. I booked a Mr. Speedy at around 3 PM, hoping that the gift would reach her before our Zoom meet at 5 PM. On the way there, I saw on the app that the transaction was suddenly canceled, and the rider said it was I who canceled it (which of course I did not).
He said that since he could no longer see the recipient’s address, he will just come back to give me back the item and pay him P150 of the P240 actual rate as per the app. On normal days I would have protested but since I’m pressed for time, I just went along with it.
I had no choice but to rebook the order as soon as the gift was handed back to me. The next rider came after a few minutes and I told him what happened. He was wondering why the rider had to return when he could have simply gone ahead with the delivery. Long story short, it seems I’ve been scammed by the first rider. I supposed he changed his mind after realizing Jen’s place was quite far. I knew there’s something fishy when the order was suddenly canceled without me doing anything.
Anyway, doing the gift exchange online stirred up a lot of pent-up feelings. As soon as we all hop in on the video, Jen couldn’t help but cry. I guess most of it was tears of joy for seeing each other again albeit only virtual—and then there’s that feeling of longing and missing each other more. I don’t have that many friends but they’ve always been my trusted ones and I would love to give each and every one of them a big holiday hug.
Apart from the secret Santa revelation itself, there was another reveal from Tin that left the three of us shocked—but in a good way. Can’t divulge it because it’s just between us but I can tell you now that it trumps the actual secret Santa revelation a thousand times over.
On regular wish list events like this, my friends and I can go for hours talking, laughing, gossiping, and catching up. But it’s quite different now that we’d find ourselves in awkward silences and uncomfortable pauses. (Dang, we can’t even get Tetay’s full attention, LOL). I don’t know if it was the lagging internet signal or getting overly self-conscious in front of the video camera.
Maybe because we haven’t planned any icebreakers in between. I wish we even came up with a theme so it’ll be more fun or thought of something more creative. But since virtual gift-giving is all new to us, we weren’t able to think outside the box. After asking how everyone’s doing and how was family and work, etc. we went on with the gift exchange.
Jen was also my secret Santa and I got the wireless keyboard I asked for. I gave her the laptop stand which she really liked. It’s funny to point out that the two of us asked for something that can be used while working from home. Tin and Tetay were each other’s pair; Tin got a hoodie from Tetay, and Tetay had to wait for her gift in the mail, which was still on backorder.
While last night’s Zoom meet was fun, old-fashioned gift-giving is still the best as it’s more intimate and personal. But 2020 is a gigantic pain-in-the-you-know-where, so we have to take it as they come not just to keep our barkada tradition going, but also so we can still feel the holiday cheer. I mean, we can’t let this pandemic take that too. Christmas is the season of giving and receiving and that’s how it’s gonna be.
It was a dark year, so it’s not so bad if we can brighten it up a little.
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