Secret Santa #superlatepost

It’s the time of the year again! Merry Belated Christmas!

From Christmas tree to shopping mall’s Christmas decoration, from turkey to snowman, the atmosphere is just simply full of joy of the Christmas~ Oh, and let’s not forget about our “Secret Santa” who brought us so much entertainment in terms of their gifts for us. You don’t know him? He is the current hot potato among Hong Kong students! No jokes!

We all are very thankful of his “useful gifts” :D.

I am very sorry (not sorry) for you if you thought I was for real. Perhaps, you shall go study the language of sarcasms ;).

For many times, in playing Secret Santa, not sure whether is it only me, but I often received presents that aren’t practical for me. For instance, a baby size scarf. (p.s I am 18 and pretty chubby.) Well, regardless of its usefulness, I certainly appreciated it, after all, it is the wish from my “Secret Santa”.

*silently sigh*

However, in the perspective of economics, Joel Waldfogel, the Scrooge in economics world, surely wouldn’t cherish it very much, but to consider it as “dead-weight loss”, the potential gain which we could have captured and maximized, however failed.

Why is it a dead-weight loss you may question? Let’s not forget the core feature of gift-giving is that the consumption decision is decided by the giver, instead of receiver. When we purchased goods for personal direct satisfaction, we seek for goods that have values which are higher or equal to the price. The goods that the giver think its good, may not be the same for the gift-taker. Rather than that, they could think it worth lower than the price of itself. Simply speaking, "useless". Take back the baby scarf as an example. To me, no doubt, it only worth the value $10 (perhaps even lesser) . But the person who gave me might have spent $40 or above. Therefore, resulting some value is lost.

Nonetheless, as a matter of fact, the closer the relationship with that person, the smaller the dead-weight loss would be.

In Secret Santa, we randomly select a name in the lucky draw and buy presents for that person. We could have three possibilities: 1.) That person is your buddy!! 2.) OK understanding towards him/her or 3.) except their name, you know nothing about them.

In the case of 1, since we know him/her well, we know what she likes, or what she hates etc. , which give us a more clear direction in choosing gifts for them. It lowers the chances of receiver disliking the gifts as it is near to the preferences of receiver, which maintain the value close to its original value.

However, if 2 or 3 happen on you, coming across the question “What on Earth are we supposed to buy for him/her” is inevitable for you in the process of finding presents.

It is extra pain in the neck for 3, due to not having any clue about that person. Knowledge problem is inexorable. Hence, there is higher chance for us to buy the wrong presents, as you can see my "baby scarf" present. Huge amount of potential gain is being failed to capture.

Personally, I insist the belief that in this yuletide, everybody deserves to receive presents that makes them feel happy. Just imagine how joyful they would be receiving gifts that is exactly what they've been wanted, this motivate me to always put huge efforts in choosing the right presents for him/her~

Though, as bad as my present could be, there are people whose gifts are twice/triple severe than mine. *Smirk evilly* Let's take a look of the compilation of students' peculiar gifts received from their Santa~

Last, but not the least, perhaps we shall all interact with the people around us in coming 2018~ Who know that person might be your or you may be his/her secret Santa ?~ Hopefully we will all receive a nice present from our Santa next year, kekeke.

I wish you all Merry belated Christmas once again!

(It means Merry Christmas in my language, Nepali!)