The 8th Annual GNamer Forum Secret Santa~! ***NAMES DRAWN***

I'm in

It is done.

Can I suggest starting it earlier? Perhaps it's just as someone who got stung by poor postage a bit last year (on the sending end) but I would rather have the time to ship than a longer period of sign ups. (I'm going to assume most will be see it this week or will be contactable if not here)

That's probably fair, everyone either signs up in the first couple of days or the last . . .

Agreed - I've moved the RSVP deadline forward a week, and names will now get drawn on Monday 23rd November. 

Ooft. If this doesn't pick up, I might need to ask Sammy Snake to take part.

In seriousness, following on from the last couple of years, the chat in last year's thread and the idea that 'this is the year to take off'...I'm not sure this forum has another Secret Santa left in it. We're down to a very small pool of regular users, and with regards to Secret Santa, I think that all of the folk from that small pool can be split in three ways. One group is the folk who've signed up to this thread this year, those five names listed in the opening post. A second group is those who've never taken part in it in any year - and that's fair enough, it's all voluntary. But there's a third group of forumites who I'm guessing been felt let down/disappointed/scunnered by their experience over the last couple of Secret Santas. After that, I don't think there's any regular posters left. There's more folk leaving this place each year than joining it, it's shrinking not growing.

I'd like to try and rebuild this Secret Santa, but I'm not confident that I can. COVID-19, stress, money, effort and being burned by lousy presents are all valid reasons not to take part, absolutely. But simply put, I don't think people will be any more enthusiastic about a GNamer Secret Santa in the future than they were in the past.

If they can, I'd hope to see more people sign up for this before next weekend, and give Secret Santa another chance.

It is disappointing to see and I know people's situations are different but personally could use something like this year to have something to look forward to this Christmas.

The names have been drawn! You all drew me, and I upped the gift budget to £1,500. 

To be fair, the rest of us could probably buy for $1500 about the same ammount you could buy for $15.

In other news, my presents arrived yesterday! Somebody who knows me well enough to wrap everything in pink! And having already made a mistake receiving Amazon presents from my family, I didn't look at any of the paperwork.

Santamazon must have been busy as I've already received mine too, got the Mrs to open it for me to avoid accidentally seeing anything so I'm all good, unless it was the kind of present she really shouldn't have seen...

Sorry guys, I avoided it this year just because I'm not sure at the moment if I'll even see my kids because of this Tier 3 bollocks, so haven't been in the right state of mind for Christmas. Apologies!

Completely understandable and excusable, no need to apologise at all. Fingers crossed the higher tiers don't stick around for long with them getting the vaccine out there.

gjones wrote:

Sorry guys, I avoided it this year just because I'm not sure at the moment if I'll even see my kids because of this Tier 3 bollocks, so haven't been in the right state of mind for Christmas. Apologies!

That's crap, GJones. Hope you get to see them, at least for a bit, and that you have a good Christmas.

Had a envelope come on Saturday which says Chris-Mas on it, thinking from Buska like a voucher or something as easier to send from Japan but a wee parcel come today.

In these times under God-Emperor Bezos I can basically send whatever anyone else could. And I don't think vouchers would be in the spirit. . .

I just received my Secret Santa gift through the post - thanks Santa!

EDIT: I've seen that a lot of retailers are reporting 'delays in the Royal Mail network', with some gaming websites even encouraging customers to not place any more orders before Christmas. I know I've experienced delays - I sent some cards first-class to family on Monday morning but they've still not arrived. I hope everybody else receives not just their Secret Santa gifts, but their own stuff.

Sorry for not taking part this year, lads - I've had a fair bit of time off work for mental health reasons, as some of you will know, and I've had to cut back Christmas gifts to immediate family (and even that is stripped back massively from normal).

I'll still enjoy seeing what everyone's got each other and I should be back for next year's Secret Santa barring any catastrophe.

No apologies necessary Jay, I think this will be on the long list of things in 2020 which everyone just agrees doesn't count.

I had a mild panic attack recently because I went through one of the old threads and saw some of the ridiculous hauls we were putting together, then compared it to what I could achieve through Amazon this year . . .

I opened my Secret Santa gifts along with my other presents at 6am this morning while facetiming my family.

I hope everybody received and enjoys their presents. 

I was really chuffed with mine - it was a French copy of No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle on the Wii. 



I've got more of a story with No More Heroes 2 than my Secret Santa might know. Truth is, I've already got a UK copy of No More Heroes 2 on Wii, but it's been sitting in my collection sealed for about nine or ten years. It's always been a game I've been meaning to play, but just didn't make the time for. We've also reached the point where I'm not too quick to unseal my Wii games. Changes in my personal life mean that I'm thinking about selling some of the more valuable ones off, and No More Heroes 2 is definitely one of those.

Anyway, when I got this package through the post, I could immediately figure out that it was a game. Knowing that, I told myself at that point that I was going to commit to playing and finishing whatever it was I'd be opening.

I was really happy to open this. It's not only quite an expensive game (well done on the bargain hunting, Santa!), but it's the fully uncensored version with all the blood and gore that was removed from the UK release - from all accounts, it's superior to the one I already own. Everything's in English with French subtitles so it's all totally playable, and I'm looking forward to getting wired into this very soon!

Again, thanks Santa - this was a top-quality present, and just the excuse I needed to finally play the game after all these years!

I got Warioware Gold on the 3DS, some Mario Lego, Mario Uno, some Kit Kat Santas & an NGamer TV DVD. Cheers Santa!

I got some Kojima based stickers that's what was in the envelope, I've put the ludens logo on the back of my phone case.

Also a cup with Higgs from Death Stranding on, which is cool but missed a trick not having the Fragile logo.

To who I got, you should had three things with one getting lost in transit, Amazon did refund me, so got a different thing as the original gift out of stock. I just looked and that's not arrived yet either, it's only small and you've got the main thing.

I'm guessing you were mine then, Mas? I like the two gifts I've received a lot!



I've never seen the series that Digimon is from but he's always on the trading card game packets and I've heard interesting things. I guess I have to check it out now!

Crumpy Andy wrote:

I got Warioware Gold on the 3DS, some Mario Lego, Mario Uno, some Kit Kat Santas & an NGamer TV DVD. Cheers Santa!

That was 100% Cappa!

I wasn't yours Buska and Andy's does sound like Cappa