Today was hell!!!!!!! The mall was crowded... we went there to buy some gifts for our Secret Santa. At Sears, a very gentle clerk explained us about this tradition here in Canada. I learned about "Chris Kringle"... I'd never heard about that before. So unexpected!
Definition: Secret Santa: - "Secret Santa is a Western Christmas tradition in which members of a group or community are randomly assigned a person to whom they anonymously give a gift.
Often practiced in workplaces or amongst large families, participation
in it is usually voluntary. It offers a way for many people to give and
receive a gift at low cost, since the alternative gift tradition is for
each person to buy gifts for every other person. In this way, the Secret
Santa tradition also encourages gift exchange groups whose members are
not close enough to participate in the alternative tradition of giving presents to everyone else.
Deriving from the Christkindl tradition, the ritual is known as Secret Santa in the United States, Ireland and the United Kingdom; Kris Kringle or Chris Kindle (Christkindl) in ?, and as both Secret Santa or Kris Kringle in Australia, Canada, and the Philippines (where it is also known as Monito-monita). All of these names derive from traditional Christmas gift-bringers: the American custom is named after Santa Claus, while Chris Kindle and Kris Kringle are both corruptions of the original name of the German gift-bringer Christkindl, which means the 'Christ Child'. Exceptions are Britain, where the traditional gift-bringer is Father Christmas, and the Philippines which has the Three Kings.
The term Secret Santa can refer to the practice itself, or any
of the people participating. In Germany, Switzerland and Austria this
tradition is called Wichteln or Engerl und Bengerl. In Portuguese, it is called amigo secreto or amigo oculto (secret friend), while in Spain it is called amigo invisible (invisible friend). Most places in Latin America use amigo secreto." (Wikipedia)
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