Monday 27 December 2010

The Restoration of Faith - #twanta

It has always been my belief that most people are good, kind and honest, and it is always heart warming for this belief to be demonstrated.

The Secret Santa idea is something I have never actually taken part in before. I knew what it was but not had the opportunity to take part. Now, thanks to @Captain_Doodle and @Wombat37 I have taken part on my first Secret Santa, a Twitter Secret Santa:

#twanta


To be honest I was briefly apprehensive. The thought of sending my real postal address to a “complete” stranger made me pause, but common sense took over and my address was soon winging its way over to @wombat37 who was coordinating #twanta and #twantee combinations.

In a very short time after the call for participants at least 50 people from all over the world had signed up. I think the response even overwhelmed the organisers.

My opinion on this? The response demonstrated the trust and respect people have for @Wombat37. The organiser of #sundaypics, you would have to look very hard for a nicer bloke on twitter.

Soon my #twantee was revealed to me by DM and the games began!

Present buying is tough for me at the best of times but to buy something for someone you have never met and only interact with on twitter was a challenge. I only hope my #twantee was not disappointed.

But of course there are two sides to #twanta. Quite early on the gift from my own #twanta arrived. Suddenly it was real, it was working. Someone I had never met, and only briefly interacted with, had sent me a Christmas present!

Meanwhile, back to my #twantee. The gift was wrapped and posted, barely making the last-posting-date. Now the wait to see if it had arrived was on. Everyday I was checking their timeline for news of its arrival. Even though all this was “a bit of fun” I could not help being a little stressed that my #twantee would not have their gift to open on Christmas day.

You could hear my sigh of relief when the successful arrival appeared on the #twanta search column (I’m guessing a lot of people had one of these). For me the stress of #twanta was over.

Fast forward to Christmas day, my #twanta gift opened:

IMAG0167

I hope I am giving my #twanta the credit they deserve. In the run up to Christmas one of my tweets declared that one should not add socks or slippers to a Christmas list. Fitting then for me that I should receive some slipper socks!

But then the wait was on again. Had my #twantee remembered their gift, were they going to open it, would they like it?!? Finally confirmation of all of the above was posted and I could finally relax.

So to sum it all up, this whole experience has added a sparkle to our Christmas at time it was most needed, and it has restored (or perhaps reenergised) my faith in human nature.

Finally a huge thanks to @Wombat37 and @Captain_Doodle for making all this possible and roll on #twanta 2011!

No comments:

Post a Comment