Hand to Hand - Exchanging Gifts

Whatever the case, you can sense, and see, that holiday spirit is making its way through Neopia. Wreathes hung on doors, lights beaming their glory from roof tops. You can possibly see a nicely decorated Plastic Fir through that one window, and suddenly all the shops have a special wrapping area.

What is this strange change of manner, and what does it symbolize? Well, the answer to that is quite simple.

Christmas does indeed happen on Neopets. The morning where young Neopets wake up to find a pile of gifts under the Plastic Fir, and chocolate candies hidden under their pillows. Neopians may also be gathering in Happy Valley, waiting to see what wonderful prizes await them inside the giant Advent Calendar.

Well, I am here to point out that a Neopet Christmas isn’t solely about the Advent Calendar. Friends can easily surprise their other friends in amazing ways.

I’ve recently spoken with one of my good friends, and we came up with the idea of a Gift Exchange. What is a Gift Exchange, you ask? Well, that’s what I’m here to explain.

You, and a friend (or a few friends) get together. Discuss having a Gift Exchange, which is where you buy a present for another person, and on Christmas Day, you give it to them. Well, with your group of friends, or single friend, come up with a price limitation. For me and my buddy, we used between 5000 – 15 000 Neopoints. Of course, we both went over the limitations.

It’s not hard to have a gift exchange. First, I suggest finding out a few things that may help you choose that perfect present.

1. Your friend’s favorite color. Color matters a lot in a Gift Exchange, especially if you plan to get that dream Petpet or maybe that plushie to finish off their collection. You should always find out the person’s color of choice before picking out a gift; sometimes it upsets people if you get them a color they don’t like so well.

2. The person’s favorite flavor. Perhaps a nice pizza, or maybe a few Chia Gumballs, would appeal more to the person than a Petpet or a plushie. Color can come in handy here, but if the person likes the flavor chocolate, you wouldn’t get them a Blueberry Slushie, would you?

3. The person’s favorite shape. You know, when I say this actually helps, some people laugh at me. But, truly, it does come in handy. Like, if you do plan to purchase that perfect Petpet, and your friend likes Triangles, wouldn’t you find a Geb more suited to their liking than a Short Fuse Petpet?

4. Element also helps out here. If your friend would rather prefer that faerie, or that new weapon, you should always find out their favorite elemental type. Personally, I like Earth-based items, such as Forest Arrows.

Now, to actually find the right gift for your friend.

To do this, I’d use the Search Engine. First, try searching for your friend’s favorite color, if you are looking for a Plushie or a Petpet. This may not work particularly well for Petpets.

If you have a lot of time, a high NP limitation, and lots of NP on hand, it helps to actually Paint the Petpet. See, for Christmas, I got my friend a Red Slorg. Since my friend loves the color Red, I spent some NP on the Petpet Paint Brush, just to make him happier. Now, what I suggest if you’re looking for a Petpet is to go to the Rainbow Fountain and click on the little link that says “All Petpet Colors.” This way, you could find the right shape, species, and color of Petpet for your friend.

Now, what else are we missing…? Ah, right!

For a Gift Exchange, it is much easier to only have you and a friend as opposed to you and five friends. With five friends, it’s easy for one person to get three presents and some other person to get none. When you use a large group of people, I suggest one of you pull names from a hat, Neomail the username to that person, and then they must get a gift for that person only.

You could try a Chinese Gift Exchange. This is where one person receives a gift, unwraps it, and then the next person could choose from the pile, or take the unwrapped gift. When a lot of people have gifts, it gets quite hard to choose!

These ones are best done over Neoboards. Of course, make sure it’s a private board. Pick somebody to hold the hoard of gifts, and when someone chooses from the “Tree” have that person give them some random item. They say what they got, and if someone else takes their gift, the person with the gift sends it to the new owner of the gift.

Another option is to gather up some of your good friends and start a humongous Gift Exchange. Have somebody hold all of the gifts (Everybody brings one gift and gives it to the trustworthy person). Now, have the person separate the gifts into three categories. In the inventory, have neutral gifts (Gifts that both genders would like). In your shop, without pricing them, have masculine gifts. In your SDB, put the feminine gifts.

Now, each person, one at a time, Neomail the ‘Gift-Giver’ saying if they want a Male Gift, Female Gift, or Neutral Gift. Then, the giver simply takes a random gift from the selected pile and sends it to the person.

Quite simple, and a rather fun way to brighten up the holidays!

Hmm… I suppose this is it, no? Well, I hope you enjoyed my article, and I sure hope it helps make your holiday a little more exciting! Have a happy holiday, everybody, and I hope Santa gets to all of you.