Covert Claus 2013

‘Tis the season for giving and this year was one for the record books. I participated in redditgifts, the largest online Secret Santa gifting extravaganza the industrialized world has ever known. The premise is infamous among the office crowd: you are assigned a stranger and given a bit of biographical information shared by that individual (including their reddit username and mailing address). You send that person a thoughtful gift and receive a gift from a different stranger who has been given a short bio about you.

This year more than 117,000 people from 161 countries participated, crushing last year’s Guinness world record.

My Secret Santa sent me an old-timey poster of San Francisco from the perspective of the Bay looking toward the Ferry Building and down Market Street.

My Secret Santa giftee (elf? good little boy?) is a woodworker from Madison who was looking to get into marquetry. From my travels I knew a beautiful style of Japanese puzzle box called “Himitsu-Bako” (秘密箱, literally: secret box). The box, which often features wood veneer, requires a special set of steps (usually 3 or 4 but sometimes up to 30) in order to gain access to the contents. (e.g. “Tap the top of the box twice, spin it 360 degrees, slide out a hidden piece of wood, etc.”)

Here’s a picture he sent me after the gift arrived (you know why the banana is there).