Yes please, more next year
I am a little sad some people signed up but didn't follow through,
Everyone who signed up (who qualified to participate) did follow through on designing a really thoughtful gift for their giftee. This was the main requirement for participation, about which I had said, "If you sign up, YOU ARE COMMITTING TO DOING THIS!"
It's true some Bees were a bit quiet in their check-in threads re: logging the gifts they did. I tried to help out there with providing clues for giftees where I couldn't find any in their Santas' threads. And I think
@Syrius 's sleuthing work helped to keep the guessing game fun for everyone where some giftees just didn't have the time or other resources to hunt down their own Santas.
It is the nature of the Hive that some of us here are very chatty and others are much less so. We also come from all over the world, and everyone has a different level of English language proficiency. This event required a pretty high level of written English skill to be able to participate. (My second language is French. I know I would have really struggled to participate in an event like this in French! Mianevem certainly would not have received as involved of a story if I'd had to write it in any language other than English!)
I wanted to make the gift exchange as inclusive and welcoming of an event as possible. But this was honestly a bit scary. It is easy to sign up for an account in an online community. It is even easier to abandon one. DAREBEE's December events always draw in new people (and draw back some old people who had gone quiet). Some of these new/newly-returned folks become active members of the Hive. Which is great! But a lot more people sign up for accounts, then post once (or not at all) and then disappear.
When I posted a public invitation to participate in this event, I knew it would be seen by both long time regulars, new Bees, and even folks who did not have a Hive account at all. When
@Damer asked if DAREBEE could promote the event on the site's front page, and I gave my blessing for that, I knew it would be seen by even more new people and casual visitors. I was confident any long time regulars who signed up would follow through on designing a great gift. But I just could not know that about new Bees who I had never met before.
The main reason there was a long gap between the deadline for turning in your gifts and when I posted them was because I needed to allow myself time in case anyone signed up but then disappeared without creating a gift, which would have forced me to scramble at the last minute to create extra gifts for anyone who had created a gift for someone else but not had one created for them. Thankfully, this did not happen! (It was still a good thing I'd built that time in there, because that time ended up being used by the Gift-Wrapping Elf to work her magic.
)
In the end, we had 19 participants, 4 of whom were new to our community and set-up brand new check-in threads for the very first time, specifically so they could participate in this event! Every one of those 19 people created a wonderful, thoughtful gift which I think really demonstrated the creativity and caring of our Hive community. DAREBEE is a special place. And I think we captured the spirit of that place together here well.
but you lovelies made it a fun experience
Yeah! I'm glad!
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The Sonoran Desert
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I have really had a lot of fun investigating!
Heeropotter, I don't want to you to go on without knowing and since you don't have time to look, here you go! You should check out Proister's penguin drawing 
You are most welcome! I am so glad that you liked it.
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