By the end of the week you will receive an envelope in the mail that is FOR YOUR EYES ONLY! It contains the name of the ONE Taylor Family Member (TFM) for whom you should bring a gift to the reunion. Our other big gift to each other is spending time together in Savannah.
NO SHARING THE NAME YOU RECEIVE WITH YOUR SPOUSE, CHILD, BROTHER, SISTER, PARENT, GRANDPARENT, GRANDCHILD, AUNT, UNCLE, NEICE or NEPHEW. Should you feel a need to share your name, please tell Quinn or Charlotte as we think your secret is safe with them:-)
Not even we know who got who as we employed a special color coded system to stuff the envelopes. We know only that you have not received yourself.
In keeping with our reunion destination, the theme of the gift you purchase should be "South of the Mason Dixon Line". How you interpret that theme is 100% up to you. Is it a southern food, was it made in the south, can you only use it in southern like weather, is it something for the southern 1/2 of your body, some other creative meaning? Completely up to you!
On December 30th, we will open our gifts one at a time and try to guess who gave each gift.
Are we setting a price limit? No. BUT we do hope that everyone remembers that our main gift to one another this year is spending time together.
What about Charlotte and Quinn? After much consideration, we decided that you need to be able to open your own mail and read the contents in order to be able to participate in the gift exchange. Maybe in a few years:-)
And have no fear, we also have a plan of how to get gifts to and from Corey and Niki. More information will be posted on that soon. There is wireless in the house so we hope the Stringer 4 can SKYPE in for the gift exchange (and other parts of the reunion!)
Any questions, let us know!
-Reunion Planning Committee
p.s. Anyone who is caught cheating faces a severe punishment such being denied Georgia peach cobbler or being lathered in butter like a Paula Dean casserole.
Not including Charlie or Quinn in the gift exchange is a pretty sound decision. Last Christmas, she was given many, many presents, but all she wanted to do was sit in Mama's new mixing bowl and be twirled in circles . . .
ReplyDeleteSounds like fun!
I'm just glad there was one more last word after..... Paula Dean in the last sentence of the last paragraph. DT
ReplyDeleteOh - and as a transplanted Southerner, I can tell you that making "hooch" in your bathtub as a "South of the Mason-Dixon Line" gift is a TERRIBLE idea. Leave the moonshine-making to the hillbillies. Done wrong, hooch can kill you, make you blind, or cause you to do things you will regret not just in the morning, but in the weeks and months to come!
ReplyDeleteAlso, as funny as it would be, no body wants roadkill jerky. Trust me.
then again, the house does have a HUGE bathtub so perhaps we could make hooch in Savannah:-)
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone else find pieces of this post awkward? :)
ReplyDeleteI am not in favor of roadkill jerky in my bathtub hooch. Please garnish with a cherry.
ReplyDeleteGreat ideas, I am already thinking of my definition of "southern." Wonderful ideas come to mind....
Uncle Larry
Katie and I are discussing a signature cocktail but I promise hooch won't be involved.
ReplyDeleteGot my envelope with the name of my TFM and this "Secret Santa" is already brainstorming South of the Mason Dixon line gifts for XXXXX.
ReplyDelete-Katie
Did not get my envelope yet...am holding my breath.
ReplyDeleteokay, truth be told work was super busy and I didn't get envelopes in the mail until Wednesday morning. So I would expect something on Monday or Saturday (do we get mail on Saturday anymore??)
ReplyDeleteActually, I was busy running a team building/brainstorming activity for 20 people at work. It was a little like planning a reunion:-) Just keep your fingers crossed that I don't make us brainstorm about the "global economy" over New Years!
ReplyDeleteAnyone receive their envelope yet?
the tc taylors have recieved their envelopes!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteThe MI Stringer's received ours! I got a good name!! :) Aunt Barb
ReplyDeleteAunt Barb - was there a risk you could have gotten a bad name?
ReplyDeleteThe TN Stringers have our envelopes!
We're brainstorming!
Corey - you are not suppose to be brainstorming - the instructions are to not share your name even with your spouse or child! mom
ReplyDeleteThat's right!! Thank you Aunt Barb!! No cheating ;)
ReplyDelete-ET and KT
I have my TFM; and am considering my SOTB gift; who does my TFM see about shipping it north of the MDL after New Years? Just curious....
ReplyDeleteIf I understand your question correctly, you want to know how to get gifts to and from Niki and Corey. Obviously this involves 4 people.
ReplyDeleteSo whoever you are should send their gifts to Matt. Matt will remove the return addresses and then send Niki and Corey their gifts. He will also box up the gifts from Niki and Corey and give to me to take to Savannah. I'll email everyone Matt's address so I don't have to post it on the internet.
Anonymous, does this answer your question?
Oh wait I see, you are asking about how to ship back from Savannah. I believe shipping will be the responsibility of the giver not the receiver. So if, for example, Corey choses to give Don a bathtub with which to make southern hooch, Corey will finance the bathtub's journey to Minnesota:-)
ReplyDeleteERin, you finally got the question right. But, it sounds like a wrong answer to me. If I can get it there, the receiver should be responsible for getting it back north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Hmmm,...
ReplyDeleteIt appears there will be a number of drivers. I am willing to bet that after a couple days of drinking hooch we will just figure out a combination of X driver getting it to Y location, and/or a couple gifts being put into one UPS box sent to one location. For those of you who are going to buy me some new skis, it will be fine if you wanted to send the skis here to TC and let me unwrap a picture in Savanahh. DT
ReplyDeleteyes, I am sure we will find a solution to any packing issues. Similiarly, I bet B.B. has a packing tube that might fit skis. So if you are my secret santa, just bring my skis in the packing tube and I'm happy to send my skis north myself:-)
ReplyDeleteYou guys are getting carried away. Are snow skis a southern gift idea?????
ReplyDeleteKeep dreaming.
The Alps in Argentina are south of the MDL!? DT
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, forgot about the equator, minor detail.
ReplyDeleteThat opens up a whole new set of options.
Now, we are supppose to buy souther gifts. Do we have to personally go to the location south of the MDL to buy them, or can they be shipped from South America?
Andes inspired gifts, now people are thinking about various meaning to the theme. Way to go.
ReplyDeleteNo one does not need to go to the location to buy the gift. But if you do, please take a picture and prepare a story to tell on gift night.
Wondered when we would get around to story times at the Taylor Family Reunion.
ReplyDelete