The holidays can be a bit of an odd time if you’ve got a small family. I would always tell people I wasn’t much for Christmas time and that I’m more of a Halloween lover myself.
Some of that came out of jealously for others having a jam-packed month of December while my December was mainly spent watching college football bowl games— that’s not a complaint, I love bowl season.
With less than fond Christmas memories, and never being one for the partying that comes with New Year’s Eve, a few years ago I decided to take the holiday season and make it my own. I wanted something to look forward to all year long that made me feel the joy and excitement I felt when I was a kid thinking about Santa coming down the chimney with a new Pittsburgh Steelers jersey or a fresh pair of cleats.
Always being one for trying to keep my high school friends together, and mesh them with the friends I made in university, I came up with the perfect plan… a secret Santa of sorts.
For years my friends, who are equally as sports-obsessed as I am, and I had talked about how fun it would be to do a jersey swap secret Santa. So, finally in 2017, in anticipation of the holiday season, I organized our very first secret Santa jersey swap.
We opted to go with NBA jerseys for that first swap. It was 16 of us and I randomly assigned a team and person to everyone, and it was a hit. We had found our own little holiday tradition that we would squeeze into the time between Christmas and New Year’s each year.
It became the perfect way for us to get time with our family but continue to see each other no matter the life circumstances that would get in the way, because to us, our friends are our family.
In the years following that first secret Santa jersey swap, we’d add the “Ronnie Awards,” a friendship award show hosted by me (I will never know why my friends call me Ronnie), a roast, and periodically we start the evening with a presentation or slideshow assigned to a rotating cast of friends that focuses on a goofy topic.
From 2017 to 2019, it went flawlessly and brought us all together every holiday season no matter where our lives took us. Then, of course, the pandemic hit and I spent that first pandemic Christmas alone in Saskatchewan without the ability to come home—reinforcing to me the importance of our holiday tradition and the reason we need to keep our bonds strong with our loved ones, no matter how far away they end up.
Finally, after going into lockdown the night before of our rescheduled secret Santa jersey party last year, we finally held the fourth annual this past summer (figured we’d play it safe and hold it over the summer in case the pandemic got bad again).
Only 12 of us made it, but 19 of us made sure to get our jersey to our assigned friend. We’d had the jerseys since early 2021 and it took over a year to execute but we came through because our friends are our family.
Despite distance and life getting in the way, we have friends who live in Ireland, B.C., Bermuda, Texas, and Tennessee that weren’t able to physically make it, we were able to open their jersey virtually and make sure they could feel the love no matter how far away they might be.
The holidays are for showing appreciation and love to the ones you hold closest, and that’s why every year, despite the logistical headaches, we make sure to hold our secret Santa jersey party to celebrate the holidays and our love for each other.
I hope to continue the tradition for as long as I live.
Rob Paul is a reporter for BradfordToday and InnisfilToday.
