A suggestion: NON-RELIGIOUS winter holiday gift exchange

[GeekDavid]

Just an idea I've been noodling in my head for a while, want to see what all of you think of this. Here's the main points of the idea:

This would be a completely voluntary idea... you'd have to sign up to be part of it. Sometime between the end of November and the middle of December I'd randomly pick people to get holiday gifts for each other. (One thing that's up for debate... does A get a gift for B and B get a gift for A, or does A get a gift for B, B get a gift for C, and C get a gift for D?)

Since we're all readers and writers, the gifts would be books (traditional paper or e-books) chosen off the recipient's Amazon wish list (which means that no one has to know the recipient's address except Amazon). Of course, you'd have to tell the coordinator (me) the web address of your Amazon wish list so I can pass it on to whoever is getting you a gift.

The giver should make every effort to follow the recipient's guidelines regarding priority of gifts, but this isn't mandatory in order to keep the gift a surprise.

Recipients are on the honor system not to peek at the "bought" section of their Amazon wish list to see what they're getting.

The gifts will have to total more than $9 US but no more than $10 US (The lower limit is to keep someone from getting a $0.99 e-book for their recipient and calling it good while the recipient is buying a $9.50 traditional book for their recipient).

Gifts are to be delivered the last full week of December (22-28), but are not to be labeled as "Christmas" or "Hanukkah" or "Kwanzaa" or "Festivus" gifts to maximize inclusiveness.

What does everyone think?

 

[Asterisk]

Sounds fun, GeekDavid!

 

[Asterisk]

Since I am now not using my tablet and can't figure out how to edit a post, I'll add that I think "A get a gift for B and B get a gift for A" would make more sense. I'm not acquainted well with Amazon and not sure if I'll do this, but it's definitely a great idea!

 

[GeekDavid]

I'm not acquainted well with Amazon and not sure if I'll do this, but it's definitely a great idea!

Amazon is really easy to use.

If you're looking at a book, near the button to buy the book, which are typically over in the upper left area of the screen, there's an "Add to Wish List" button.

If you're looking at the paperback version, it will look like this:

Kindle edition pages look a little different:

Just click on the button and it gets added to your default wish list.

If you want to see what a filled-out wishlist looks like, here's mine for an example.

In order to get a link to your wish list, you use the "Share with Friends" link for email (looks like a little envelope). A window will pop open on your screen giving you a link for your own personal wish list.

 

[Chilari]

It might be a good idea to group people by country where possible; i'm not entirely sure how things go about buying someone a gift when they're in another country. Also in the UK ebook gifting doesn't work on Amazon, or it didn't a couple of months ago when I tried it.

 

[Guru Coyote]

It might be a good idea to group people by country where possible; i'm not entirely sure how things go about buying someone a gift when they're in another country. Also in the UK ebook gifting doesn't work on Amazon, or it didn't a couple of months ago when I tried it.

I think this is an awesome idea!

I'm with Chilari regarding the country thing though. I have an accoutn with amazon.de and can easily buy gifts there, but have no idea how it would work with physical books into other countries etc.

 

[GeekDavid]

It might be a good idea to group people by country where possible; i'm not entirely sure how things go about buying someone a gift when they're in another country. Also in the UK ebook gifting doesn't work on Amazon, or it didn't a couple of months ago when I tried it.

Well, if push comes to shove you can always just send them a gift card... but I'd say that should be an absolute last resort.

I'll do some research, tho.