Jessica Smith is Chief Mom Advisor of MomForce.com and Chief Mom Officer for Wishpot.com. She chronicles her experiences as a mom and virtual executive at JessicaKnows.com. As Thanksgiving nears many may notice the holiday decorations going up at malls, shopping centers, and around neighborhoods everywhere.  And with that comes thoughts of gift exchanges, Secret Santas, and Yankee swaps sweeping over the office cubicles, playgroups, and book clubs.

Gone are the days of yore when the person in charge of the said gift exchange had to keep meticulous records and notes carefully hidden from all the participants.  Just like Fantasy Football, Secret Santas can now be organized online, too.

Gift exchanges used to be purely for fun, but now those pinching their pennies are using the Secret Santa as a way to save money.  Rather than get a gift for everyone in your family, which for some people can be in the double digits, a gift exchange retains the spirit of giving on a much smaller scale.  An added bonus? If you only have one person to shop for and therefore spend less overall, you can spend more time and thought on the actual gift itself.

With so many in need around the world, another great way to leverage the Secret Santa concept while giving back is to donate money to a charity in the gift recipient’s name. But don’t just pick a random charity, think about the gift recipient’s interests and passions and let that guide your charity choice. (more…)

In Western culture, where the holiday is characterized by the exchange of gifts among friends and family members, some of the gifts are attributed to a character called Santa Claus (also known as Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas or St. Nikolaus, Sinterklaas, Kris Kringle, Joulupukki, Weihnachtsmann, Saint Basil and Father Frost).

The popular image of Santa Claus was created by the German-American cartoonist Thomas Nast (1840-1902), who drew a new image annually, beginning in 1863. By the 1880s, Nast’s Santa had evolved into the form we now recognize. The image was standardized by advertisers in the 1920s.

Father Christmas, who predates the Santa Claus character, was first recorded in the 15th century, but was associated with holiday merrymaking and drunkenness. In Victorian Britain, his image was remade to match that of Santa. (more…)