2019 Secret Santa wrap-up

Seeing as how were already halfway through the month of January, and February will be here before I/we know it, I'm gonna go ahead and officially put a bow on 2019's edition of the Secret Santa.

We bested last year's total of 30, by drawing 32 participants this year, many of whom were new to our little gift exchange. Thanks to Dan's (Vroomed) efforts, we also had a number of people join from the TCDB, so many thanks go out to Dan for his help in luring unsuspecting victims increasing the number of merry makers. And of course a heartfelt thank you goes out to everyone who decided to join in on the fun, hopefully it was just that for all who were involved.

We did have a few hiccups this year, and there's still one unresolved problem (that I know of), but I'm hoping that this wrap-up will help expedite it's resolution. Other than that, things went pretty much according to plan, which is a good thing, as there should never be any problems with something that has "Santa" in the title.

As per usual, I've compiled a list of who gave to who, with all of the blog recaps being highlighted. I think that I have all of the recaps here, but if I've somehow missed one, please let me know and I will update the list. And if any more recaps are posted after today, I will go back and amend the list accordingly. So without further ado, here's the list...

Chris (The Collector) from Kirk (CaptKirk42s Trading Cards Blog)
Paul (Scribbled Ink) from Jim (cards as i see them)
Jared (CMMDTO) from Me (the blog that you're currently reading)
Henry (Cardboard Greats) from Nate (The Bucs Stop Here)
Nate (The Bucs Stop Here) from Jim (budler on the TCDB)
Adam (ARPSmith's Sportscard Obsession) from Kari (karsal on the TCDB)
Greg (The Collective Mind) from Billy (Cardboard History)
AJ (The Lost Collector) from Kerry (Cards on Cards)
Kameo (Twitch Collects Cards) from Bryan (Collecting Cutch)
Mike (Not Another Baseball Card Blog) from Adam (ARPSmith's Sportscard Obsession)
Billy (Cardboard History) from Kevin (KMack on the TCDB)
Roy (Nothing If Not Random) from Jared (CMMDTO)
Me (the blog that you're still reading) from Matt (Diamond Jesters)
Bryan (Collecting Cutch) from Rod (Padrographs)
Kerry (Cards on Cards) from Henry (Cardboard Greats)
Tim (I Love the Smell of Cardboard in the Morning via Twitter) from Trevor (Bump and Run Football Card Blog)
Trevor (Bump and Run Football Card Blog) from Andy (Stadium Fantasium)
Matt (Diamond Jesters) from Teresa (terrbear5951 on the TCDB)
Rod (Padrographs) from AJ (The Lost Collector)
Andy (Stadium Fantasium) from Dan (Vrooomed on the TCDB)
Kevin (Kmack on the TCDB) from Kameo (Twitch Collects cards)
Kari (Karsal on the TCDB) from Greg (The Collective Mind)
Chris (Ntlwhlr on the TCDB) from Mike (Not Another Baseball Card Blog)
Jeff (Xanadude on the TCDB) from Chris (Ntlwhlr on the TCDB)
Tyler (Rekindling The Cardboard Flame) from Jeff (Xanadude on the TCDB)
Joshua (Sportzcommish on the TCDB) from Tyler (Rekindling The Cardboard Flame)
Kirk (CaptKirk42s Trading Cards Blog) from Joshua (Sportzcommish on the TCDB)
John (John's Big League Baseball Blog) from Chris (The Collector)
Jim (cards as i see them) from John (John's Big League Baseball Blog)
Teresa (terrbear5951 on the TCDB) from Paul (Scribbled Ink)
Dan (Vrooomed on the TCDB) from Roy (Nothing If Not Random)
Jim (budler on the TCDB) from Tim (I Love the Smell of Cardboard in the Morning)

Phew, that was quite a list to type out... but thanks again to everyone who made said list possible!


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Time for a mini vacation

After two days of doing so, I have finally finished sending out the last of the Secret Santa emails. If you're participating this year's SS, and you somehow haven't received an email with the name/address of your giftee, please let me know (jtef82@gmail.com) and I'll resend the information.

This is also now my 11th post in 13 days, which is an awful lot for me, so that, combined with the 31 emails, has got me a bit tuckered out... hence the need for a mini vacation!

I'm going to take a few days off from blogging now, which will give me some time to recharge, and it'll also allow me to catch up on about a week's worth of everyone else's posts.

I can't imagine that they'll be any need for any more Secret Santa updates, at least not until the wrap-up post, so I'll be back in a few days with some non-SS content.

P.S. Thanks again to everyone who signed up to participate this year :)


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The field is set

The sign-up period for this year's Secret Santa is now closed. I don't know how it happened, but we ended up with 32 participants this year, which bests last year's mark by two. As Billy can attest, I had my doubts about even being able to find 20 interested parties this year, what with the blogs being a bit down and all. So with that being said, thank you to everyone who joined this year!

Also, thanks to those of you who helped to promote this year's SS on your blogs, Roy (Bulldog) and John Sharp come to mind first.

And a very special thank you goes out to, Dan (Vrooomed), from the TCDB, who started a thread on the site to help promote this year's SS. I'm fairly certain that this thread was responsible for drawing about 1/3 of our entrants, so I'm very grateful for his efforts.

As mentioned, we've got 32 entrants for this year's Secret Santa, all of which are listed below:

Me (that's yours truly, not someone who has "Me" for a user name)
bbcardz
Trevor P
Mike Matson
John Sharp
GCA
The Bucs Stop Here
Vrooomed
Billy Kingsley
Karsal
Scribbled Ink
The Lost Collector
budler
Tim B.
gcrl
Matt
Sportzcommish
JayP
Chris
Ntlwhlr
Rod (Padrographs)
arpsmith
Bulldog
Henry Blanchette
KMack
Xanadude
ketchupman36
terrbear5951
CaptKirk42
Madding
Collecting Cutch
Kameo

Now that the field is set, I will randomize the names tonight to see who get's who, and will then start sending out emails tomorrow. Please note though, last year I pushed myself and got all of the emails done in one night, which was not a smart move on my part, so this year I'll be sending half of them on Tuesday, and will finish up the rest on Wednesday. And once again, thank you to everyone who joined this year!


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Looking for one more

We're currently sitting at 31 participants who have signed up for this years Secret Santa, which is really great because that tops last years count of 30, but it would be nice even it out if possible -- so if anyone's on the fence, or if you somehow hadn't heard that the Secret Santa is happening again this year, you've got until tomorrow to sign up. It's not a big deal though if we can't get to 32, as I will take care of the extra person, but still...

*Update* The 32nd participant has been found!


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Initiating Secret Santa 4.0

Whether people want to acknowledge it or not, we're now entering the Christmas season, which for the last three years has meant - at least for the blogging community - that Secret Santa season is nearly upon us as well.

In an effort to give everyone an extra week to shop, I've decided to go ahead and launch the fourth annual Secret Santa a week earlier this year.

Last year's gift exchange went over swimmingly, we had 30 participants, no one was stiffed, and to my knowledge, no one was unhappy with their gifts. Since it was my first year as host of the Secret Santa, I couldn't have been more pleased with the results. I know that the blog's have been down a bit this year, so it might be a little difficult to draw 30 people again, but I'm hoping for at least 20 entrants, as it might not be very fun, or even doable, with less.

For those who've participated in the past, nothing has changed, Matt laid down a solid set of rules when he created the SS four years ago, and I see no need to try and reinvent the wheel.

For those who haven't participated in the past, the rules are pretty simple:

- The limit is $10 for the actual gift.  Feel free to add extra trade bait to take full advantage of the envelope.

- Please reveal your identity at some point to the recipient of your gift. This helps me do a nice wrap up post at the end and may help introduce some new trade partners to our community.

See, pretty simple!

There are a few other bits of not so fine print to mention as well, so please read the following items before signing up:

1. Who's eligible to join?: All bloggers are welcome of course, as are all the friends of the blogs (frequent commenters, trade partners, etc.). TCDB members will be welcomed with open arms. People from Twitter will be allowed to join too, although this will be on a case by case basis, meaning that if I've interacted with you, and know that you're not gonna flake out on everyone, then you're good to go -- or if someone else of note can verify the quality of your person, you'll be welcome to join as well. And then of course all former bloggers on Twitter will be encouraged to participate as well.

2. Canada, eh?: If we're lucky, we'll have a few a Canadian participants amongst the Secret Santa field, so keep that in mind. There are cheap methods available when it comes to shipping to Canada, but if this is something that worries you (it shouldn't though), it might be a good idea to sit this one out.

3. Reach out and touch somebody!: This one can't be stressed enough, please send a quick thank you to whoever your Secret Santa was. I realize that life can get sort of busy around this time of year, and maybe you won't be able to get a blog post up, or get a tweet sent out, but you can certainly spare a minute to send off a quick thank you email -- plus it has the extra added benefit of letting your Santa know that the package they sent did arrive at it's intended destination.

4. You must be new around here!: If you haven't participated before, please send me an email (jtef82@gmail.com) with your address, and if you're not a blogger, please also include a link to your TCDB wantlist, or at least give me some sense of what you collect, so that I can pass these things along to your Secret Santa. Also, if you have participated in the past, but are now at a different address, please send an email with your new address.

5. Help!: Last year I asked folks to help spread the word, and you did (thank you again for that), so I'm going to ask for your help in doing so again this year. I hate the thought of someone wanting to join, but missing out because they some how didn't see my posts, or just have never come around here before. I'm not asking for full blog posts here, but if you could just maybe mention it at the end of a post, that would be great, and probably would go a long way towards getting as many participants as possible.

I think that just about covers everything, if I've forgotten anything, or if you have any questions, please let me know in the comment section or via email.

I'll leave the sign-up open for a week (there's going to be plenty of reminders between now and then), so that should give everyone plenty of time to update/add to their wantlists, or if you're like me, give you some time to actually create some wantlists.


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