Not-so-secret Santa

The element of surprise contributes mightily to the joy and wonder of Christmas. My celebration this year has been largely devoid of this crucial component thanks to technology.

That’s right, efficient and convenient online tools have robbed me of another of life’s simple pleasures. I have very inefficiently and inconveniently labored to counteract these tools in an attempt to give my Darling Beloved Christmas surprises, but that has all been in vain.

Christmas 2025 holds no secrets in the Wallace household.

Back before Al Gore invented the internet, when two people loved each other very much, they would buy gifts for each other by going to a department store, seeking the assistance of a sales person, and overpaying for something for their special someone that the salesperson talked them into. “Ooooh, honey, thank you for this gold plated spatula. It’s breathtaking.”

Or if you were poor or poor-adjacent, you would go to a discount store, park 138 miles from the front entrance, hike to the doors while avoiding eye contact with the Salvation Army Santa ringing a little bell over a red kettle, and do hand-to-hand combat with your neighbors over the discount merchandise. “Oooooh, honey, thank you for this black plastic spatula. It’s breathtaking.”

This has not been the way I have had to shop for many years now. Back in olden times, I used to take each of my boys out separately to buy something for their mother because it’s literally the least they can do for the person who keeps them alive. Now I’m down to just one who requires transporting and coaching on gift purchases, although Carlton has proven to be more adept at gift giving than me at this point.

To be honest, I don’t mind getting into the mix at Target or Walmart once during the Christmas season. It’s nostalgic and a little fun. Once.

I have a strong aversion to shopping. I do the grocery shopping in our family, but it’s not browsing and choosing. I am given a list with explicit instructions. I am briefed on my mission before I leave the house, and I text my Darling Beloved and even Facetime Mission Control for guidance when Publix’s inventory conspires against me. As a former runner, I can’t help but track my times each week. (My PR – that’s personal record, for you non-runners – on a regular Saturday of shopping for a week’s worth of groceries is 24:31.)

That’s the way I used to approach Christmas shopping. Make a list. Check it twice. Get in, get out. It was like Mission Impossible without as much machine gun fire and motorcycle jumping.

Then, sometime after Al Gore invented the internet, Jeff Bezos invented online shopping. I wasn’t an early adopter, but I did eventually succumb to the efficiency and convenience of Amazon. It reached a low point the year Carla texted me a bunch of links, and I clicked away for 7 minutes and 29 seconds, finishing my Christmas shopping with a new PR. But that was when the Amazon Prime account was in my name and had my email address attached to it. It was also the time when I knew every penny Carla spent through Amazon and every gift she purchased during the holiday season, including my own.

Full disclosure on holiday spending does not always facilitate an atmosphere of romantic longing. You spent how much on Lego? Because my Darling Beloved could not bear to have anything come between us, she elected to change the email address associated with our Prime account to hers, and I was plunged into the blissful darkness of unknowing.

My Christmas became a lot more exciting because every present opened on Christmas morning, including ones with my name on them in the “From” field of the ubiquitous tiny stickers affixed to gifts, was a total surprise. Having no idea how much any of it cost added to my Christmas joy.

This all changed a few years ago after a sub-10-minute shopping session. One evening after dinner, Carla suggestively suggested how much she loved being surprised at Christmas. She said it was disappointing to wake up Christmas morning already knowing everything she was receiving. I thought we were talking about something else entirely, so I was paying attention and got the hint.

For the last several years, I’ve taken the text message links to Amazon products and painstakingly shopped for these items like a caveman. I get in my personal vehicle, drive to retail locations, engage with salespersons, and overspend on products that I could have purchased for less money in a matter of seconds without burning fuel or using up my waning supply of patience.

I am fortunate to work on a college campus which has a set of Amazon Lockers. If you haven’t experienced this joy, it’s just like every scene from a thriller in which Brad Pitt leaves a duffle bag full of cash in an airport locker and later comes back to retrieve a package of world-saving serum. 

The only difference in my case, (and by “only” I mean, yes, of course, I look exactly like Brad Pitt) is that I exchange a duffle bag’s quantity of money electronically, and Amazon delivers the package to the lockers at the student center. Amazon then sends an email with a super secret number and a barcode that I use to open a locker and retrieve my items. I found it to be surprisingly easy because of all my experience buying propane at Lowe’s.

This work-around failed because of the fatal flaw of the code email. Guess who that went to? Yep. Carla. She received the email with the very subtle subject line: “Your purchase of the Golden Spatula 4000 is now available at the Amazon Lockers at Oglethorpe University.” Thanks, Jeff Bezos, for letting that cat out of the bag.

Fortunately, my web savvy co-worker Heather showed me this incredible, new invention from 2002 known as the “Shopping” tab on the Google. As it turns out, I don’t have to physically go to stores. I can take the specifications from the helpful links Carla sends me, copy and paste them into my Googler, click “Shopping” and voila! 491 websites where I can buy the same thing but at a 40% premium! 

What’s even more fun is that to purchase this item from these other sites, I have to fill out online forms and give out my personal information, including my credit card number, to exponentially more online retailers who then sell that data to Russians on the Dark Web.

I know this because just this week, my staff meeting was interrupted by a series of suspicious text messages and voicemails from my credit card company asking if I had made a $1,440 purchase from Apple, $437 purchase from Target, $298 purchase from Walmart and more. After determining these messages were, in fact, from my credit card company and not someone trying to trick me into giving out my credit card number, which turns out was totally easy to steal, I did a conference call with the bank and my Darling Beloved. That’s when all my secrets were revealed.

Actual human bank lady: “Is this $29.95 from Xpsensivo Fragrancio yours?”

Carla: “No.”

Lance: “Uh, actually… I think that’s me.”

Carla: “Oh, OK.”

Actual human bank lady: “Is this $79.43 at GoldenSpatula.com yours?”

Carla: “No.”

Lance: “Ummm… yeah, again, that’s me.”

Actual human bank lady: “What about the $14.31 at Mystery Beauty Things and other Womanly Secrets?”

Carla: “Definitely not.”

Lance: “So here’s the thing…”

And on and on until every last surprise Christmas gift I purchased was revealed. Like a failed double spy in a John le Carré novel, my cover was blown and I was going to be killed. I broke out in a sweat. My pulse raced. I had the sudden urge to go all Jason Bourne and run out of my office, sprint down the hall and jump out of a window while using a magazine as a parachute.

Pro tip for all you out there trying to be secretive with your purchases: complaining about the effort required to buy your Darling Beloved gifts does not endear you to them. In fact, it does the opposite. It de-dears you to them. 

So that’s how I arrived at this point in the Christmas season with exactly zero surprises for Carla under the tree. 

Then again, this entire post may just be an elaborate ruse to throw Carla off the scent. 

Happy shopping and good luck keeping your secrets safe.