The Sister Secret Santa

Every year, around the first week of December, my sisters and I start our one and only holiday tradition: Sister Secret Santa. There is an email, unnecessarily long, and full of exclamation points. One of us invokes Elfster.com, a website that automatically draws names. We send wish lists. We’ve been doing it for five years now, a new tradition that arose from a passion for presents and the unassailable human desire not to be alone on the most depressing of holidays.

The tradition itself was born out of financial necessity. There are four of us, and while we welcome any and all comparison to the Kardashians, we do not have Kardashian money. Three gifts per sister, plus the obligatory gifts for our respective sets of parents was just too much for us to handle, so, in a stroke of brilliance, the Sister Secret Santa was born. The holidays are a terrible time for plenty of people, and I’m slightly suspicious of that one person who listens to Christmas music the day after Thanksgiving. I never got the appeal of the holiday sweater. I understand that those are their traditions; mine is slightly different.

Gift giving has never been my strong suit. There are some people in this world who relish the thought of buying things for others and who are actually very good at that particular art. To buy something for someone else — a good gift, an appreciated gift — requires the same kind of skill set and patience usually reserved for Pinterest boards full of home decor and hair styles. I lack this skill. To be bad at gift giving feels a little bit like being bad at celebration or having fun. It speaks to an innate selfishness that we all possess in varying quantities, some more pronounced than others.

“Yes, this shirt is lovely and I love it,” you think to yourself, picturing the delight on the recipient’s face. “Of course they want this Le Creuset spoon rest,” you say, feeling the smooth weight of the ceramic in your hand. You love it so much that you buy two, one for yourself, only to find that its recipient doesn’t see the point. Buying a gift for someone is a lot of pressure, almost as much of a reflection on you as it is on the giftee. The Sister Secret Santa indulges our desire to receive gifts and fulfills the weird part of your inside that lights up when someone opens something you gave them that they actually like. It’s an important tradition, and one that we will probably keep.

There have been missteps in the gift exchange, necessitating a barrage of links to lipstick and various tote bags in the email chain. This year, one of my sisters requested the tiny baby Yeezys Kanye made for Kim. I have in the past requested a pony. The wish lists are a necessary evil. I’m sure there is some school of thought that thinks that wish lists for presents take out half the “fun” of gift-giving, but I heartily disagree. One year I bought one of my sisters a shirt from Madewell, after considering the entirety of her wardrobe in my head and placing said shirt in the context of her other clothing. It was a nice shirt, and had it been in my size, I would’ve purchased one for myself, worn it to our gift exchange and posed for pictures in front of our tiny Charlie Brown Christmas tree. When she opened it, she held it up, cocked her head to the side and asked for the gift receipt. The wish list ensures success. We haven’t had this problem again.

For a while I felt guilty about not being with my family on Christmas. This year, when discussing Thanksgiving plans with my father, he asked if we were going to come home on Christmas. I told him that we were doing the gift exchange as planned, and that my sister Jenny and I would be home the day after, as tradition dictates, completely casual but entirely non-negotiable.

“Do you hate us for not coming home on actual Christmas?” I asked.

“You don’t want to leave your sisters behind,” he said. “I get it. This is the way you do Christmas. I don’t hate you.”

Getting on a train with a billion other people the day before Christmas Eve feels like the worst kind of obligation. No matter how much you actually like your family, there’s something about the holidays that makes the time feel both very long and very short. Maybe it’s knowing that everybody else that’s home when you are is at their house, unable to leave, trapped by expectation and tradition. Traipsing down the stairs in matching pajamas to open presents is adorable as a child. One of the most powerful things you will do in your adult life is saying no to your family about coming home for the holidays, and not feeling bad about it at all. To make that choice is to acknowledge that you’ve formed your own life with your own traditions. It’s not ungrateful to say no to your old traditions and find new ones that work for you.

Last year, my sisters and I exchanged presents and made a giant Chinese food feast. Before eating (but after ripping into our presents), a simple disagreement over whether or not to throw a football around ballooned into a screaming match between me and my 24-year-old sister Shaina, causing me to storm out of her house and sit on the front steps, texting furiously to my sister Tessa upstairs, trying to get her to take my side. Later, we made a pitcher of margaritas and watched Rush Hour. We ate ourselves stupid with food, took a lot of pictures for Instagram and called our mom.

This year is the fifth anniversary of the Sister Secret Santa. We will go to the Chinese food court in Flushing and eat stinky tofu and shaved ice. We will exchange gifts at Jenny and Shaina’s apartment while lighting a tree. We will probably argue over something — whether or not to watch “Property Brothers,” or a movie that no one can agree on, most likely. There will be one fight, guaranteed, but no tears. I will take a cab home Christmas night through a mostly-silent Brooklyn with Tessa, eyes half closed, full and happy.

Megan Reynolds lives in New York and is an associate editor at The Frisky. Follow her on Twitter, if you want.

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