Friends' Secret Santa spoiled when one friend gets careless candle, candy, and mini nail polish as her gift: ‘I do a secret Santa every year with my friends, this is the first year I've felt disappointed & honestly kinda hurt’

This year's Secret Santa started fine until one friend opened her gifts and realized the magic didn't quite make it to her. A random candle that smells like a hotel lobby. A nail polish set, she literally said she didn't want. Some candy that might have fallen out of a gas station bag. Sure, one thing came from her wishlist, but the rest felt thrown together at the last second. Everyone else got neat, thoughtful stuff. Hers looked like a rushed grab before checkout.

The thing is, this group actually takes Secret Santa seriously. It's their end‑of‑year tradition, the kind that usually means effort and inside jokes. They don't just buy things, they show they notice details. So seeing everyone unwrap perfect little gifts while hers looked like an accident was, yeah, deflating. Not rage‑level bad, just that quiet sting that comes when someone close forgets what makes you you.

Am I wrong for getting annoyed at my secret Santa gifts from a friend?

via Nicoleta Ionescu

Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.
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via Nicoleta Ionescu

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She goes home, shows the gifts to her family, and they guess who gave them immediately. That part says it all. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be careless, but it sure looked that way. And that’s what hurt most, not the cheap stuff, but the thought that wasn’t there. In this Secret Santa, the candle wasn’t the problem. It’s that nothing about it said she mattered.