Hi friends!

It is a beautiful clear day at the North Pole — a rare sight this time of year. Of course it is dark all the time now so when I say it is a clear day that means we can see the stars. It’s beautiful.

There is a new fad sweeping the North Pole this week. Well, actually, it’s an old fad. This seems to be a year with a lot of Secret Santa going on.

People do this all over the world, actually. They will gather together — in classes or work groups or families — and draw names. The name you draw you become “Santa” to in giving them a secret gift or doing nice things for them without being caught.

Santa himself merely mentioned the idea as a good one to elves during our Thanksgiving celebrations last week. Ever since then the elves have just gone crazy with the whole secret Santa thing.

Where I work in the Public Relations Department is a good example. We have about 35 elves who work in our little office here at the North Pole. On Monday we all met during a lunch meeting and drew names.

Everyone got all excited and within hours strange things started to happen. One elf got a nice little box of candy given to her anonymously on her desk. Another got a “candy cane bouquet” delivered to him.

Today is only Wednesday but this morning there are gifts on desks and chairs all over the place. Everyone has gone Secret Santa crazy!

But here’s the deal: our secret Santa thing was only supposed to be for Christmas.

This is very typical of elves some times: we just go overboard. Any time you mention something to do with Santa we tend to just be a bit over-the-top. One lady elf yesterday came to work in a red suit and a fake beard!

Now, I ask you, is that really neccessary?

I’m all for having fun as elves. But I see I might need to put a little water on this fire before it gets out of hand.

Here is what bothers me: elves for the most part do a good job keeping secrets with the world. You are surrounded by elves and you likely don’t know it. Your Mom or your teacher or some other person you might know like a neighbor COULD be an elf and you will never know it.

But elves among themselves just cannot keep secrets. They just can’t. They tell each other everything.

So the “secret” part of Secret Santa to me is like a bomb waiting to go off. We still have several weeks until Christmas and I can tell you there is no way the elves in my office are going to make it until then without everyone knowing who got whose name.

They are having fun and I suppose that is the point. But I sure hope these elves can work more on doing the “secret” thing better.

What about you? Are you a secret Santa?