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Dear Dish-It: Secret Santa

Dec 13, 2010

Dear Dish-it,

In our class we do Secret Santa, where you buy gifts for someone. We had to pick names out of a hat; I got the school bully. I hate her. What do I do?

Unhappy Santa

Secret Santa Dilemma

Dear Unhappy Santa,

If you ask me (which you did), the holidays are a great time to try to love and forgive the people in your life – even those that haven’t been very nice to you all year. Have you ever heard the saying, “Kill them with kindness?” Basically, it means that in order to get someone to be nicer to you, being mean back to them doesn’t work as well as being extra super nice to them – essentially what you are doing is treating them the way you would want to be treated yourself. I’m sure you’ve heard of a second saying that goes: “Two wrong don’t make a right.” THAT means that being mean back to a bully usually doesn’t work. Better to fix the problem by being nice – especially at Christmas time.

So here’s what I think you should do. Since the whole idea behind Secret Santa is that the person you give a gift to will never know it’s from you (it’s supposed to stay a secret), I think you should get the school bully something really cool – something you know she’d like to have. And if you feel like you want to get your point across to her – that bullying is not nice – now’s your perfect chance! Write a card and attach it to the gift. Don’t be mean or try and teach her a lesson – rather, write something like, “Merry Christmas! I hope we can all be nice to each other this year. I think you’d be a great friend!” It doesn’t have to be exactly that, but you get the point. DON’T sign your name – just keep it a secret and she’ll never know who wrote it. But maybe it will get her thinking about being nicer to you and your classmates!