Secret Santa

“May, I need your help.”

At the words, I glance away from my computer monitor to see Cindy Harris standing in the doorway of my office. I’m the coordinator of student life at Milford College, which basically means I oversee all the organized student activities on campus. I have a small office in the student affairs suite of the main administration building, but most of the time I’m in it only a few hours a day. Most of my work takes place around campus rather than at my desk, and that’s one of the reasons I like my job.

At the moment, I’m reviewing the recent applications for official student clubs and wishing people could follow directions better, so Cindy happens to have caught me at my computer.

I turn toward her with a smile because I like Cindy and am happy for any distraction from a tedious task.

Cindy is the administrative assistant for the college president. She’s a quiet, competent, polished woman in her fifties, and she comes over to sit down in the one chair beside my desk. “I need you to take over the staff gift exchange this year.”

Every year in December since I started working at Milford College six years ago, the staff has had a Secret Santa gift exchange in the weeks leading up to the Christmas party. It’s a nice tradition, and people always get into it and have fun, but it involves a lot of people and so it’s a somewhat complicated task to organize.

I bite back a groan. “I thought you had that covered.”

“I’ve got it started, but I’ve been told I need to clear some things off my plate so I can focus more on the accreditation visit this spring.”

“But your plate is always big enough for everything, isn’t it?”

“I think so,” she says dryly. “But everyone is stressed and I’ve been told there can be no distractions. So would you please help me out? You’re so good at these kinds of things, and everyone loves you.”

“Of course I’ll help you out. Is it just the gift exchange or the Christmas party too?”

“No, I’ve got the party planned and organized already, so it’s just the Secret Santa.” She hands me a few pages of printed names. “I’ve already sent out the preliminary information. Here’s the list of people signed up so far. I’ll email it to you as well. So if you can, just follow up with anyone who hasn’t signed up to make sure they don’t want to participate, organize the exchange of names, and then send out weekly emails reminding everyone to work on their weekly gifts.”

The way it’s always been done, we give our designated staff member a gift once a week for three weeks until the final gift at the Christmas party, where the givers are at last revealed. The gifts are all inexpensive—no more than five dollars for the first three weeks and no more than ten for the final gift—and it usually becomes an escalating competition for who can be the most creative and amusing with such a low budget.

“Okay. I’ll do it.”

“Thank you so much. I’m sorry you won’t be able to participate yourself this year, but since you’re in charge of who gets who—”

“I know. I know. It’s no problem at all. I’m not very creative at that kind of thing anyway.” I glance down at the list of names. Near the top of the first page I see the name Jeremy Carson, and I feel a flicker of pleasure and familiarity.

Jeremy is my best friend in the world. He must have been one of the first people to sign up this year.

This is significant since he’s been a vocal Christmas hater since I first met him when we were both teenagers. He was a foster kid for most of his childhood, and from what he’s told me, his Christmases were never very good. I’m not surprised he doesn’t get into Christmas. The fact that he’s already signed up is probably more a testimony to the way I nagged him about it in previous years than a sign of any new desire to celebrate the season.

But for whatever reason he’s on the list, it makes me happy.

“I’ll be glad to take this over,” I tell Cindy.

“Thank you, May. I knew I could count on you.”

As soon as she leaves, I close out the application document I was reviewing earlier and start working on the list of names, identifying the members of staff and faculty who haven’t yet signed up.

It’s been a pretty good turnout. Only about half the faculty have signed up, but that’s not unusual. Faculty are always bogged down with the end-of-the-semester grading at this time of year, and a lot of them disappear as soon as classes end in the second week of December, so they’re not around for most of the gift exchange. I’ll send out a reminder email to them to make sure they didn’t let it slip through the cracks but only follow up in person with the few I know normally participate but don’t have their names on the list.

There are only eleven members of the staff who haven’t signed up. I can probably make a quick walk through campus and touch base with most of them this afternoon.

I print out the names of the people I need to check with, and then I grab my jacket from the hook on the back of my office door. It’s a slim-cut coat in a buttery-soft brown leather that Jeremy gave me for my twenty-seventh birthday a couple of months ago.

It’s the nicest jacket I’ve ever had, and I smile as I put it on. Glancing in the mirror, I smooth down my thick, shoulder-length red hair and make sure I don’t have flecks of mascara under my blue eyes.

The reflection in the mirror is pleasant in a familiar way. When I was younger, I didn’t like how I looked. I didn’t like my red hair or my freckles or that I was so tall and gangly. But sometime in my early twenties I grew comfortable with my appearance, and I don’t worry too much about it now.

Plenty of people think I’m attractive, and if anyone doesn’t, I really don’t care. I just don’t have the interest or mental energy to worry about that anymore.