Most years, our admin officer takes care of it but she was off on maternity leave. So I decided to do run it, I figured I was anal enough to get a hold of everyone and mildly threatening enough to get all the presents in too.
I made signs and asked people to contact me via email or tell me if they wanted to be in Secret Santa. I got like five emails, one from my boss, two from my managers and and three from organised friends. Ms K and N asked me if I wanted a hand with organising it and I accepted Ms K's assistance thinking it would be a small job. It wasn't. I went around and hassled everyone on the ward about it and then wrote it down on a piece of paper.
I made numerous signs and posted them everywhere and I still had about six people I forgot about and had to ask/add last minute. The favourite sign was in the bathroom and it became rapidly graffiti'd by my bored workmates who had something to say about my particular wording. It became a major talking point around the place. What exactly did I write?
"Please tell/email ThatSeriousGirl if you want to be in Secret Santa this year. The limit is $20, you can spend more if you like them. This year there is a new rule, when you put in your name, put down something that you want so if the person who gets you has no idea what to get you, you still get something you like. We draw names by mid November." Or something to that effect, whatever, the signs are gone now. This was in early November.
People picked over ever part of that poster. Some of the choice ones were, "so I can spend less if I don't like them?" "It defeats the purpose! (in relation to putting down what you want)" "This is so confusing we need an inservice on it." And as a reply to that one, "we did but no one showed up!" I also got asked a lot of questions about dumb stuff, like when we were drawing names, how much we were allowed to spend, where I was going to put the preferences, and why we needed preferences in the first place!
To me it made sense. If you've ever gone to a lot of effort for a Secret Santa present for someone you got and then got a really bad one in return, its a real disappointment and you really wonder why you bother sometimes. At least now if you get something, it won't be so much of a disappointment cause you get something that you want!
Mid November rolled around and we had collected nearly all the replies back. I was due off for holidays but before then I got people to pick their Secret Santa. Out of a clean vomit bag. It wasn't my idea honest! It was the lovely Bec's idea! Whenever I presented it to someone at work, they grimaced and recoiled from me until I explained what it was and whose idea it was, once they found out it was Bec's idea everyone nodded and said it made sense. However, there were some people who I just explained I didn't have a hat for it and they just looked at me weird.
Ms K., covered me while I was gone and handed out nearly all the remaining names. I still had to hassle people about preferences and if they wanted to be in. Several people had gone on holiday who said they wanted to be in so we managed to get a hold of them by drawing for them and contacting them via email/phone. Some people still hadn't checked their emails and never got back to me so I ignored them.
Then one of the Secret Santa people pulled out and they had to redraw. Then someone hadn't drawn but I had marked them down as having chosen a name. It all got sorted in the end and I began hassling people for presents.
Time for more harassing posters! This one read: "Secret Santa news! We are handing out presents mid-December, please be early rather than late and tell Ms K or ThatSeriousGirl that you are handing in your present. I will be on you like a bad rash the later you leave your present, and I bet the person who has you has already gotten you something nice. You bad person."
Despite this and hassling people all over my workplace about it. Presents trickled in right until the last day. Apparently, I had a higher success rate of presents bought in than our usual present bringer, with the most commonly quoted reason being, "I hope ThatSeriousGirl doesn't get angry at me." I suppose it helped that I was threatening to do terrible things if presents were missed, one of the things said may have been I was going to write down phone numbers on dirty bathroom walls, but that's a lie, and you didn't hear it from me.
I had a day off on the day of the party and spent three hours baking in my house baking with the air con blasting on a mega hot, scorching day. There are no photos below besides this one because I had like three hours from when I went to my house to the Secret Santa party plus commute time, a shower, dishes to do, yard to clean and general fridge cleaning. I was pretty proud of myself, I also made peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, kettle corn and my chocolate fudge cake as per previous recipes for it. The cake is sad because I baked it at my dad's house which has a terrible overheating oven. It tasted like a dense mud cake instead of the fluffy glorious thing it was when I first baked it.
I was considering not posting this at all but a lot of the allied health workers on my ward wanted to know the recipe for the coconut macaroons and the GF brownies were a hit too. I'm glad I wrote down the recipe because at the time of writing now, its been a month and I only vaguely know it. I've modified the macaroon recipe from a few I've read and made up the GF brownie recipe from scratch. I wanted fancy GF brownies, I had leftover cream, I wanted something less cloying and different in the brownies, I left my hazelnuts behind at my dad's house. Bam salted caramel GF brownies were born.
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| Compensate for lack of photos with this extra large one |
Uses: GF goodness, super crunchy coconut bites.
Ingredients:
1 egg white: 1/3 cup of sugar: 1 cup of shredded coconut
Citrus Zest - 1 tbsp
Note: So if you use 3 egg whites, its one cup of sugar and 3 cups of shredded coconut. I normally use lemon zest, but orange or lime work just as nicely. If you like your macaroons super crunchy, and only want to eat the outside, flatten them into thin discs and bake for longer. Super delicious straight out of the oven, but they keep poorly like that.
Instructions:
1. Whip the egg whites to soft peaks. Preheat oven to 180.
2. Fold in moderate amounts of sugar, like a third of a cup or something. Beat again after until it forms a glossy white liquid like an Italian meringue. Repeat with remaining sugar.
3. Add in zest and stir again.
4. Get your hands dirty and squeeze hard/cup/mold into tight 50c piece sized balls. If they're not tight, they will leak and be marshmallow lumps with coconut. Also you won't get as nice a crunchy top and soft inside without it. Or cheat by using a greased ice cream scoop, whatever.
5. Bake for at least 8-10 minutes, or lightly golden brown.
Gluten Free Salted Caramel Brownies:
Uses: inducing hyperglycaemia, toothache and an urge to eat the whole tray
Texture: Chewy, gooey, sticky goodness. Frequently described at the party, as that sticky date, chocolatey thing. If that gives you an idea.
Ingredients:
Brownies:
100g dark cooking chocolate
100g butter
100g almond meal
1/2 cup chocolate chips
2 eggs, plus extra egg yolks from the macaroons. Omit otherwise
Caramel:
1/2 cup of white sugar
1/2 cup cream
100g butter
2 tbsp of salt
Instructions:
1. Melt the dark chocolate and butter together. Heat oven to 180. Line brownie tin with baking paper.
2. Mix in eggs and almond meal, as well as any extra egg yolks if available.
3. Arrange your chocolate chips at the bottom of the brownie tin, scatter them evenly.
4. Heat sugar over medium heat, in a high walled saucepan, until beginning to brown.
5. Whisk in butter until incorporated, keeping the saucepan on heat. It will foam up so be careful
6. Whisk in cream until mix, it will also foam up.
7. Reduce until slightly thickened and stir in salt.
8. Pour over brownie mixture, use a knife to swirl in caramel.
9. Bake at 180 for at least 30 minutes, ideally take out once the caramel stops bubbling so violently and the edges begin to turn crispy.
On consideration of this recipe, I really had to put the brownies in for the longest time out of all the foods I made that day. I'm not sure how long I did it for, so watch this space for another attempt some other time. I think if you wanted, you could halve the caramel, and reduce it until much thicker. At the time I did it, it was thin like a thin caramel sauce, and as not thick as say, caramel ice magic sauce. In my mind, I had these thick, luscious, golden brown ribbons of caramel in crunchy yet gooey chocolate brownies. Not quite that, but still good, they were the hit of the party.
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