Secret Santa targets have been assigned... Please start your engines!

www.boardgamegeek.com/secretsanta/target


If any retailers have deals/specials/etc... please post details in this thread.


Here's the country list breakdown:
Norway - 1
Hungary - 1
Japan - 1
British Isles - 1
Hong Kong - 1
Slovenia - 1
Austria - 1
Taiwan - 1
Israel - 1
Mexico - 1
Malaysia - 1
New Zealand - 2
South Korea - 2
Italy - 2
Brazil - 3
Singapore - 3
France - 4
Belgium - 4
Portugal - 4
Chile - 5
Finland - 5
Denmark - 5
Sweden - 6
Netherlands - 7
England - 9
Spain - 9
Germany - 11
Australia - 14
United Kingdom - 29
Canada - 47
USA - 468

So let's say we wanted to ask a question of our Secret uhh... Kid? I dunno, what's the recipient of a Secret Santa?

Anyway...

Let's say we wanted to ask them a question without tipping our hats as to who we are? Is there some mechanism for that?

Engage.

.w.

anyone have suggestions when your target is overseas? this is all new to me...hehe

"Secret Victim" sounds like it would trigger NSA warnings. "Santa Victim" works.

Victim's gift ordered, and frankly, quite bizarre. Suprised I could track down anything on their Must Have list, actually. Thank you, www.boardgameseeker.com!

Yay!!! I love shopping!!

Now to see if my FLGS has any of these OOP games on their shelves - hope I can snag one, wouldn't that be a GREAT Secret Santa gift, some game that's been OOP for a year or two? Wish me shopping luck!!!

All of my target's "must have" items are pre-release... strange. I think it might be a card saying "you've been enrolled in the GMT P500" for my victim this year.

Last year, my secret santa created a throwaway account on BGG to ask me a question.

People who find they have an overseas victim may find something useful in the following thread. It's a list of game stores by location around the world accumulated from various separate threads.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/120302

-MMM

Hee.

Email sent, item ordered.

And now to await drool-inducing packages at work, and rub hands gleefully.

Hee.

Well, I have been assigned a target in the USA (I don't think I'm giving much away here, given the number of Geeks registered in the USA).

My first port of call will be one or two mail order retailers on your side of the Atlantic, which will reduce the shipping cost - and customs involvement - substantially. I am assuming they can deal with a delivery address in a different country from the billing address?

Now, let's see, do they do giftwrap ... ?

My target has only items on his wishlist. None played, rated or owned. It would've been fun to search through played games and try to figure out something outside of his wishlist. Guess I'll just have to live with it and send a good beginners game. I found some funny information from the posts website: playing cards and gambling material are illegal to send to the country in question :P

First let me say that I really love this whole Secret Santa thing. I was a little disappointed to see that my target was in England, for this reason. The exchange rate is terrible right now, and this is going to make it pretty hard to get the amount of game I was hoping to give. My target for example has Keythedral on his wishlist. Thoughthammer - my usual supplier- has it for $32.47. Within the right range, even if shipping takes it a little over. I looked up a game site in the home town of my target in England, and they have it for £31.45. With the current exchange rate that is roughly $60. Ouch. Anything that costs over say £15 is going to be pretty expensive, plus shipping. Shipping from the US is also extremely expensive and moreover slow. Last year I know every effort was made to keep the target in the same country, but it seems to me that if Tim Synge's target is in the US, then this doesn't seem to be the case this year. It's not that I won't get my target a game, I will. It is just that he won't get the same kind of game I could send to someone in the US. There really is no solution that I see for this year, but hopefully next year (and I will certainly be ready to do it again next year) this will be taken into account.

On another note, if someone has a good suggestion for a better game vendor in England I should try, please send me a PM and I will check it out. I just want to send the most game possible for the money.

I hope this doesn't sound too negative, because I enjoyed the Secret Santa gift giving last year, and I am still excited about it this year.

Thanks for listening and Merry Christmas, Bob

My target better have been nice this year, not naughty. Mission accomplished! Package on its way.

You aren't allowed to open before 12/25, right?

Out of curiosity, how many people signed up for Secret Santa this year. What is the breakdown by country?

Have fun everyone!

A word of note, in case some people didn't think of this, as I first did.

Make sure to check your Santa Target's Owned list. My Target has one of eir Must Have's already. Good thing I checked eir Owned List to see that. Actually, I was checking eir Ratings List, to see what e liked in other games, and saw that a Must Have was marked as Owned.

Now to figure out how to get something to a destination across the Pacific without paying more than quadruple what the game would cost to begin with.

I have a 'SecretKid' from the USA. Sending a package the size and weight of a board game to norht america is about 25€ :-)

Easy solution: buy the game at a webstore located in your targets country. Thoughthammer does the job for me. I give my victims adress for shipping and use my own for payment - problem solved. This way I have more money to spend on the game

I'd say that if you're in the US and your target is in the UK, $60 is probably the bare minimum you'll get away with (if you're looking at $30-$40 games). I just placed an order for a pretty nice game from a shop in the UK and it's going to be ~$65. Ah, well, he'll be most pleased.
Oh, and try Shire Games--nice selection.

Although people in the UK can buy in the UK, it is pretty expensive compared to buying from a German store and having it shipped - maybe try that with some stores that US ppl buy from located in Germany? Anothe hint: in the UK it is difficult to get U.S. games like Rio Grande do...i.e. boardgames with the cards in English not German. Personally, I wuld prefer a US version of a German game which is shipped cheaply and arrives in January than a game in German that someone has payed a fortune for!!

Good luck!

In case there's not a more formal mechanism... http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/137839

Okay, I was all for this Secret Santa thing, but now I'm a bit miffed. Not only is my target overseas (and I can deal with that), but almost everything on their wishlist is either OOP, or so expensive it's beyond my means to procure.

Sorry to say, but unless that changes, I won't be able to follow through on my end. Wasn't everyone told to make their desires reasonable? The one thing they want that I can afford would give me an Ebeneezer complex.

Help a guy out here! What do I do? Do I get something not on their list and hope they're happy with it?

I also have a target over seas. Is there a website translation thingy that I could use to view sites in english? I can't unfortunately read that language. Otherwise, I do have a friend who is that nationality and has relatives in that country! Still, I would like to try to do it myself. Also, what's the shipping rates for over seas?

Wishlists are only suggestions - if there's nothing within your range, then go with something else?

I'd say you might also want to check their "want in trade" lists. Hey, Secret Santa - whoever you are - that might work for you, too!

Here's the US Post Office international shipping calculator:

http://ircalc.usps.gov/

Also, I ordered my game for my UK counterpart through Amazon, here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/

In the end, I paid about $75 for the game, but it's Christmas! It should be there in a few days!

(BTW-what is VAT?)

If everything on their wishlist is unattainable at a decent price, then start checking out forum posts and other things written by your target to get a sense of what they'd like. Look at games they've rated high but do not own, or look at games they've rated high and find another game by the same designer.

I think the "research" is part of the fun. My target is going to get something very interesting and surprising and definitely wanted.