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McKay did have to wonder about the average level of intelligence of the people serving at Atlantis that so many of them were so caught up in the idea of a "Secret Santa". It wasn't that he was a complete scrooge. Quite the contrary actually. He loved the season; any holiday with a tradition of celebrating with big feasts was okay in his book. As alleged adults, everyone here should really have outgrown the need to receive meaningless, silly presents from others. It was a pity he could not group himself with the natives of the Pegasus galaxy and observe the gift-giving in bemusement. Insisting that their unfamiliarity with the custom and inability to obtain some of the more traditional gifts exchanged may in fact damper the experience Ronon, Teyla and her people, well at least her adult people, had wormed their way out of the present exchange. Elizabeth had only conceded once Teyla agreed to allow gifts to be distributed to the Athosian children.
It was not the bitterness of Christmases past clouding McKay's judgment either, though he could hear the voice of his sister in his head insisting just that. What did Jeannie know anyway? She'd always got if not good presents, at least different ones every year from her secret Santa at school. But not him, oh no not him. It was the same thing every year. Did some poor soul get his name every single time or was there some weird rumour spread that made people believe it was the only thing he really wanted to get? It was possible that some poorer student always ended up with his name, but that would account for gifts being inexpensive, not gifts being exactly the same; even poor people have some variety of choice. It had gotten to the point that, well if he was completely honest even now, he could not stand the sight of a "Book of Lifesavers" especially around the holiday season.
McKay looked down at the piece of paper in his hand and resigned himself to finding a gift for an individual whose name he did not recognize. He knew himself well enough to know that this did not mean that he did not actually know the individual, his own brain being inexplicably challenged when it came to remembering people's handles. But how was he supposed to get a decent gift for someone if he couldn't even connect their name and face together in his head? A good gift generally involves knowing someone a little better than that. It was problems like this that lead to year after year of receiving lifesavers. Plus this was Atlantis; even he couldn't come up with a respectable idea on how he would get the item. Last time he checked, most catalogue companies required that you at least be in the same galaxy as them. Though, he understood from Elizabeth that if he had an order ready before the Daedalus left, it would come in the next supply run.
McKay snorted at the concern he was experiencing over a simple little gift. He was willing to bet no one would believe it if he did mention the amount of thought he was putting into this little endeavour. Why he would bother was a bit of a surprise himself, but a small part of him never really wanted to be the one who put that feeling of disappointment that he himself felt each time he opened yet another book of lifesavers. He hoped his secret Santa wouldn't be as thoughtless as he himself usually was, and fervently hoped it wouldn't lead to the most dreaded of all gifts.
It was deemed that all but the mandatory skeleton crew needed to keep Atlantis running would attend the Christmas Eve festivities. The Athosians were brought over to participate and Carson had agreed to play the role of handing out the gifts to the children before settling en masse to indulge in the traditional meal, the fixings flown in on the Daedalus especially for the occasion. As part of the leadership of Atlantis as well as a member at the most shot at away team, McKay's attendance was mandatory. Like he'd skip out on a Christmas turkey dinner and all that went with it! It was between the meal ended and the shindig with dancing, mingling and all those other merry activities started that the secret Santa gifts were handed out.
McKay was not concerned about the reaction to the gift he'd finally settled on for the person whose name he had selected. After consulting with his not so secret military source, in the form of one Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard, he felt he had managed to get his recipient an appropriate though meaningless present for the occasion. Elizabeth had set both a minimum and maximum amount to be spent on the gifts. The minimum she noted was to prevent anyone from being Scrooge-like in their gift giving. The way she looked at McKay had him feeling that was the scrooge in that scenario. As if he'd punish some otherwise innocent by-stander for her asinine plans! Though, if he had gotten her name he would have incorporated his displeasure in to the gift itself.
Once the "Secret Santa" gifts were distributed, Elizabeth and Sheppard made it clear that it was expected for people to share their pleasure and open their gifts at the party. If anyone had managed to show bad taste and procure a gift that should not be opened in the presence of children, they were to let the recipient know now or if they wished to remain a secret to approach one of the departments heads and they would handle delivery the message on the secret Santa's behalf. No one made any move to prevent gift opening, so apparently crass ideas had been off the table during the gift selecting process.
There was a lot of tearing of paper and gushing over what was inside, so either the gifts being exchanged were very good selections indeed, or the people stationed on Atlantis had refined the art of faking appreciation. McKay glanced over at his secret Santa recipient who seemed to genuinely pleased with what he received, a set of laser tag guns. A person can count on boys being boys at Christmas. A short while later when he stopped by to thank the scientist, it became abundantly clear that a certain Air Force officer had not grasped the "secret" part of the "Secret Santa" practice. McKay glared at him from across the room which turned out to be a mistake because this caused the man to sauntered over and point out that someone's rather large present remained unopened.
McKay looked from the unimpressed Lieutenant Colonel to the package in his lap. He couldn't very well tell the man that it had occurred to him that the box could hold a year's supply of lifesavers books without ending up explaining the whole childhood trauma and the man already had more than enough ammunition in his arsenal all ready to tease him with till the day he died. Of course, being they were in the Pegasus galaxy and faced death on pretty much a day to day basis, that didn't actually have to be all that much ammo.
Realizing that Sheppard was not going to depart till such time that he had opened the gift and reviewed the contents, McKay started to tear away the shiny red wrapping. He opened the flap a peeked inside; not sign of a lifesaver book, so he opened the box all the way. At the top was a largest box of Laura Secord assorted chocolates available from the chain, so clearly his secret Santa was not one of the stingy ones Elizabeth was so concerned about. He also held up a box of large tin of fine grind Tim Horton's, so Santa had cashed in on the fact that McKay was Canadian when doing the gift selection. Given the size of the assorted chocolates plus the coffee and what appeared to be a genuine Bay blanket based on the four coloured stripes, Santa had also likely spent more than the maximum to do so. Of course only a fellow Canadian would likely know enough about the cost of these items to realize this and there were so few of them in Atlantis that it was at least one secret not to be revealed this night.
Caught off guard by the thought that went into a gift built around giving him a little taste of home, McKay almost missed the last little item in the box. As he went to fold the package up for storage he noticed a little knick knack rolling on the bottom of the box. He reached in a pulled out a small hand carved and painted replica of a ZPM. A little something of no use, but clearly created just for him. The scientist had never received such a thoughtful gift in his adult life, possibly even in his entire life. He glanced up at Sheppard who frowned a little and shook his head. So either the reveling of secret Santa names only worked if he was the secret Santa in question or the man did not know the identity of his gift giver. McKay scanned the room desperately seeking out a face looking on to see his reaction but could find no one. For the first time he was frustrated by the "Secret Santa" tradition simply because someone went through the trouble to either create or have someone else create such a perfect little thing and he had no way to say thank you.