Kia ora Santas!
We have awoken from our non-Christmastime slumber to tell you lots of very exciting news. The first is that yes, NZ Secret Santa is indeed happening again this year!
So right off the bat, there’s going to be a few changes and there’s going to be a few stays-the-sameses. Let’s start with the stay-the-sameses.
What’s staying the same?
1) The general structure of the game
You know how it works (unless you don’t, to which I will say, hi! Welcome!). Sign up, get your Santa, sleuth your Santa, tweet hints to your Santa, send the present, wait patiently (seriously, be patient), get your gift, tweet about it, enjoy in the Twitter revelry.
2) The Bad Santa Gift Stash + Super Secret Santas
We’re basically prepared for the inevitable when it comes to bad Santas, so we’ve already started stockpiling gifts for such an inevitability. We will also probably require Super Secret Santas when the game actually gets underway, so stay tuned to the account in late Nov/early Dec for info.
3) Our charity – CanTeen!
So normally we like to change charities with NZ Secret Santa like people change cellphones – approximately yearly. But we had such an overwhelming and incredible response to having CanTeen as our charity (I cried over all the presents we received), that we’re doing the same again this year.
4) Adding a card to your gift
So with hanging with CanTeen again, we’re doing the “add a card to your gift” part again too! All money for the card goes to CanTeen. ❤
5) Badges!
Love ’em or hate ’em, we’re using badges again this year.
So what’s changing?
1) The dates!
Believe it or not, we heard you. Last year got really frantic, especially with the earthquake putting elf HQ out of action, so we’re extending the timelines this year just in case. The dates are as follows (unless we change them):
6 November – Registrations open
22 November – Registrations close
23 November – You’re assigned your Santa
10 December – Send in your gifts by this date
18 December – Dispatch date
We’re giving you an extra week to send your presents – so don’t let us down or you’ll be in trouble. We also heard you about how it wasn’t fair how quickly Auckland got their presents compared to everyone else. That was a weird logistical quirk with dispatching on a Thursday with the storehouse being in Auckland. So now we’re dispatching on a Monday and…
2) The Storehouse is moving!
That’s right! The NZ Secret Santa Storehouse will no longer be based in Auckland. We’re moving this puppy to Wellington. As a side note, if someone wants to bring in a puppy as a therapy dog, we might need it.
We don’t know the exact address that we’ll ask you to send your things to yet, but please for the love of Christmas DO NOT send any NZ Secret Santa presents to the old Storehouse address.
What does this mean? For you, logistically, nothing at all really. Send it to our Welly address, elves take care of it, boom, Christmas is sorted. It may mean that if we ask for help, you can join us at Elf HQ! Previously the Storehouse was at the North Pole behind a line at NZ Customs at the International Mail Centre, which meant it wasn’t technically in the country. Hooray! It also meant that anyone without clearance couldn’t enter, so we couldn’t accept any help from eager Santas.
Please bear in mind just because we might ask for volunteers doesn’t mean we will ask for volunteers. We love your help and enthusiasm, but we just can’t guarantee the scope of everything.
Anything else to note?
A few things.
If we’re perfectly honest right now, we’re having some technical issues at Elf HQ. Nothing for you to be concerned about, but there might be a chance our dates will change as a result. We’ll let you know more if it’s looking to throw things out of whack.
We’re going to be a little stricter around the badges system this. Last year we had requests for workarounds on the charity badge, and while we accommodated this last year, we’ve decided it’s not fair on our charity partner. Not discouraging you from donating to other people anyway, but you’ll need to donate to CanTeen to get the charity badge this year. No workarounds. Soz fam.
We’re still looking for Bad Santa Gift Stash contributions, so awesome businesses, please get in touch!
Also if you want to write a guest blog post for us, message us on Twitter!
And that’s all from us for now! If you’re playing again, welcome back! If you’re playing for the first time, welcome! Let’s make 2017 the best NZ Secret Santa yet.
Lots of love,
Libby, Aj and the Elves x
#nzsecretsanta 