Like Five Gold Rings

Susan was quite a nice-looking girl. Rather, she was perfect looking. I have never seen a young lady with such flawlessly formed features. Her face was oval, dusky and her eyes were like those of a doe. She had straight dark hair that glistened and framed her doll-like features perfectly. Yes – she was a living, walking, breathing Barbie doll.

Yes, Barbie with the face and body shape to match. And she was not wanting in intellect. She was smart, spoke with authority and did her job to perfection.

At that time, I was employed as a senior manager in a bank and Susan, a team leader reported to me.  Many times, when our team advertised open positions internally within the bank, and male colleagues came for interviews with me, they hinted at wanting to be a part of her team. In fact, and I don’t exaggerate when I say this, one male member of our team deliberately made errors in his work in order to get pulled up by her. Sometimes the offences were repeated so many times, that I the ogre, the 40’ish senior manager who looked something like Raggedy Ann, had to step in and issue written warnings of termination from services.

Her birthday and Valentine’s became a total pain for the poor thing. Her desk would be filled with chocolates, soft toys and cards; this became so bad that Raggedy Ann had to step in again, with Human Resources bringing up the rear, to issue warnings against sexual harassment in the workplace.

One Christmas Season, one of the girls in the team suggested a great team bonding activity called ‘Secret Santa – Secret Angel’ and enthusiastically prepared the chits with all our names on it. She then loaded all the chits into a bin and asked each of us to pick one. The name picked would then become the Angel or the beneficiary of a small Christmas gift at the end of the game.

We were all gung-ho about this. Since our department dealt with payment services, we were working on Christmas eve, so the organiser of the game suggested that we end the game on this day. However, there was a twist. The Secret Santa would remain a secret. The Secret Santa was also allowed to send messages, cards, chocolates and anything within our Core Standards of Behaviour to his or her angel during the days leading up to the event.

And so, the game started; as we neared the big day, our decorations went up, lights flickered on desks, and monitors were decorated with tinsel. A Christmas Tree, gaudily decorated, was placed near a pillar, and an elaborate crib was laid out at the entrance to our department. Sometimes cards would be placed under the tree, or chocolates near the crib, with a name scrawled on the wrapping, signed ‘Your Secret Santa,’ and there would be squeals and yelps of delight. The man who ran the cafeteria made extra profit from all the chocolates he sold, and the card shop across the street certainly had lots of business.

Some within the team played the game with gusto, sending messages and cards and treats everyday to their Secret Angel, and challenging them to guess whom their Santa was. Others like me, rarely saw anything. It was obvious in my case. Being a senior manager, my team members walked on egg shells around me, but I couldn’t explain it in Susan’s case. A card, or a note or a chocolate now and again was all her lot, and that made me believe that her Secret Santa might have been a girl.

I still don’t know whom her real Secret Santa was.

On Christmas Eve, my secret Santa gave me a set of wooden wind chimes as a gift. Very tasteful and non-controversial; and it still hangs on the balcony of my home. Susan found a lovely pink top, all neatly wrapped up under the tree. She picked it up, raised it over her head and thanked her Secret Santa aloud, whomever he or she was.

Then the organising girl came up, tapped her on her shoulder and said:

“You have another gift from your Santa.”

Susan opened it with a wide smile. In it was a white teddy bear, holding a red heart with the words, “Have a heart. Have Mine.”

“How sweet.” Susan blushed her embarrassment away, as she held this one up as well and thanked her Santa out aloud.

“One gift was enough Santa,” she announced sweetly. “You didn’t have to do this.”

Somehow, I was sure that her Secret Santa was blinking in astonishment. The pink top was legitimate, but this soft bit of fluff was not what the real elves had wrapped up.

As the day advanced, more gifts were found by the crib and the tree and two of these were for Susan.

“To my beautiful Secret Angel, Susan,” read one tag in red lettering. It contained another soft toy, a cat I think, with pink heart boldly saying, “Marry me, purrrlease.”

The second one was a large box of assorted chocolates, with a card that asked her to “run away with me to Vegas.”

The handwriting on both notes were so unlike each other that a fool might have guessed that the gifts came from two different people.

Susan blushed from the horror of it all, and pushed the gifts away from her. She sat in her chair biting her lip for a moment and then, as if making a decision stood up and once more announced.

“Not impressed. Secret Santa,” and she crinkled her nose because she knew that there were more than two Secret Santas involved. “No more gifts please.”

She had hardly said that when the organising girl came up with another gift, placing it on her table, grinning widely.

“No! Not again!” she moaned.

“Open it,” said the girl. “I want to see what this is.”

“No!” Susan said flatly. “I will not.”

“Come on Suze,” said the girl with a smile. “It’s only a game.”

“I’m not opening it,” she asserted stubbornly, whereupon a male colleague, with a loud guffaw, walked up to her desk, reached for the gift and tore the wrapping apart. It contained a musical box, which when opened played a tinny imitation of the song ‘Distant Drums.’ When the music came to the part “so marry, marry me, let’s not wait..” the eager gentleman sang along with a sly grin on his cheeks.

There were no prizes for guessing whom the Santa was for that gift.

Thankfully, no more gifts followed this one, and the Secret Santa celebration passed off with no further event.

At the end of our day, as I gathered my things together to leave, I heard Susan give out another cry.

On her desk was a handmade cardboard house, with a red roof and a white picket fence. On what might have been the garden was written the following words, with little boxes drawn at the end of each line.

“Merry Christmas Suze!

“Please tick the appropriate box:

“Your Home.

“My Home.

“Our Home.”

Susan sat down in her chair and sighed, looking at the cardboard house. Then I saw her shoulders shake as she burst into good-natured laughter.

The following Christmas, Susan was married, moving into a real red roof house with a white picket fence. Thankfully her husband doesn’t work for the bank; but I’d be lying if I said that he never did, because at one time, he was a part of our team and quite frequent with his deliberate errors.