.         As the holiday season officially begins, many Westfield students turn to the time-old tradition of Secret Santa. The exhilaration of receiving a much-wanted gift and the surprise of discovering your Secret Santa leads many students to partake. Whether with a large friend group or a few close companions, how do students at Westfield undertake the Secret Santa initiative?

.         “We give each other presents around a day or a few days before winter break,” explained Ayisha Asharaf.

.         When asked whether they liked to put the pieces together to find out who got who, Sriya Batpatla passionately insisted, “I don’t want to know who got me! I’m not going to do the math in my head.” (I later found Sriya creating a diagram of who got who in AP Lang in an attempt to decipher the correlations).

.         “Well, not really, because it makes it easy to find out who got me,” said Alina Sikander, who out-of-pocket-ly continued, “My mom died of cancer three years ago.” (she did not)

.         Sriya Bapatla profoundly reflects on the impact of Secret Santa by stating, “I think it’s about the symbiosis between all of the parties involved. The Schrödinger’s cat of the stock market will greatly benefit from this chemiosmosis. I think the instantaneous rate of change greatly reflects all of the bears and bulls of Wall Street in the secret santa industry.” (I honestly don’t know what that meant, but okay)

.         Popular games often come in many versions as people add their specialized rules. For example, Uno, many still argue over stacking and special cards. What are some special twists and unique rules students at Westfield implement to Secret Santa?

.         “Nah, yeah, we are basic b!tches,” explained Bapatla.

.         Niranaja Exhilarasan added, “We should have joke gifts next year.”

.         Although Secret Santa is a supposedly joyous tradition, often, the fatal flaw that puts a nail in the coffin of holiday fun is people: their last-minute gift shopping, thoughtless and cheap presents, and Grinch-like attitudes. 

.         “Bro, Sriya is going last-minute gift shopping,” gossiped Ezhilarasan. “And I think my sister might be a Christmas Grinch.”

.         The lack of response in the Secret Santa group chats created entirely for organizing the gift exchange makes establishing a definitive date difficult.

.         “Yeah, it’s hard to organize because nobody responds in time in the group chat, including me,” explained Ayisha Asharaf, completely selling herself out.