"Wichteln" for X-mas

[D.Schäferhund]

Hello
I was wondering if you have that tradition here, too. and if so why not start one with people from the Forum, for everyone who wants to participate...

Well In germany we "Wichteln" at work or in associations or well all over where poeple come together...

Wichteln comes from" little creature, troll, hop-o'-my thumb and they leave everybody something .
Meaning every name goes in apot and everybody draws a name. then you buy a little gift, about five dollars. and give it to the person you have drawn. Well usually there is a party involved and maybe a little poem per person, but over the internet, well maybe we can mail the little things.
And after chrismas everybody tells what he got.

There are some nice variations, like "the gift i got and don't want to keep" or "what I don't want in my houshold" and so on. but this is for mor advanced Wichtel...

Maybe we could do that have a little fun?!?!

[minpinsrock]

That sounds like a great idea!! I'm up for it.

[Carrie]

That sounds like a really nice little tradition. I love hearing about different country's customs.

My ex is from Czechoslovakia. (Ceskoslovensko) And they have this little tradition where Jesecek (sp?) pron: Yejsheshek (sort of) (Jesus) comes and leaves presents under the tree, then rings a bell and the kids know he's been there and they can come out from where they've been coerced into hiding....and see. He also leaves some change under the plates at the end of the meal. When the dishes are picked up, there's money. Whoever gets the most, gets their wish. LOL. He might even leave a little candy. When my daughter was about 2 she was sitting on my lap at the table and Jesecek (gotta find out how to spell that) suddenly and invisibly left a Hershey's kiss on the table. And Emily started freaking out and crying. It scared her so much that someone could have left something without her seeing him. ROFLOL. Woops.

Anyhow...just had to tell that story. Well, I wonder how we could do this present thing online. It does indeed sound fun and such a nice, simple.... not so highly commercialized way to exchange gifts.

[Raised By Wolves]

I'm in!

[meganc]

sounds like a good idea i guess im in too

[Giny]

Sounds like fun! I want in too!

[flyndog]

Yes, Cass, that is our "secret Santa"!

[calgal]

It will be interesting to see how drawing names on a computer works.

[Shadowkins]

OOOOhhh! can I play too?
That is an awesome tradition, Schäferhund. In our family, (I being french canadian) add a twist to Xmas. We celebrate xmas eve into the wee hours of Xmas morning. It all starts off with midnight mass but someone always stays behind to do the Santa thing. Ours, is stockings...they(the stockings) only come out while the kids are asleep or gone to mass. Usually, we fill them with lots of little things and wrap each one, then put them in the stockings, so when the kids return from mass , voila, Santa came!!! They are allowed to open only stocking gifts until the big meal is done...which is usually around 2:00 or 3:00 am.
It's alot of fun, but can be quite taxing on the mothers, but my mom did it for 60 odd years with six kids.

[Gerald]

I'm down ... how should we go about it??

[D.Schäferhund]

Hi
wow so many, thats cool.
Well i guess the easyest way would be to collect the names(plus real names) and adresses via email.Maybe with a deadline, and everybody who send an email, participates.
And when the deadline is up,The names get drawn for everybody, and you get per e=mail wich person u have to wichtel and u got the adress to send it to.

Well but if anybody knows, how to build a probgram that can do that online... that would be great,too....

[D.Schäferhund]

And i was thinking a little more...
We could open a thread when all the packages are there and for example on the 22.dez we all open the packages. then we make pics of it and put it in here.
no names please, well yes we have to put the names on the package, but some probaly don't know the real name of a person, so we still could guess from who it is....
what do u think?

[Raised By Wolves]

This really sounds fun!

I'll keep checking back to this thread to see what's going on.

[LuvMyPups]

I am a member of another forums that does this. However, it gets a little more extravagant. The easiest way to do it is to have one person in charge of it all. Everyone emails their information, (including some likes and dislikes) to that one person. That person than randomly picks the names and sends out emails telling everyone who they have and what the persons likes/dislikes are. There is one certain mailing date and then everyone starts a thread giving out clues to who their Secret Santa might be (ie. My secret Santa lives North of me and such) I participated in the July Xmas exchange (yes they do it twice a year) and it was a blast. I didn't participate this time because they tend to spend upwards of $25 - 50 or more on their packages.

Perhaps we could stick with the 5 dollar rule but add the clues in to spice things up a bit??

[Pugdawg1]

We're doing that on another forum, a pug forum. We have a thread with clues, hints etc. But if you are going to do this, it will need to be done soon, if you want presents to arrive by Christmas for those folks that wind up sending internationally.