There is an organization in DC that does what they call a Covert Santa operation. The DC team visits the military hospitals and "adopts" sick and injured service personnel for Christmas. They pick the person's brain for potential gifts and then send the list to the elves. The elves then take the responsibility of purchasing, wrapping, and sending the gifts along to Santa. He gets some help from the team in DC to deliver the gifts but the elves remain anonymous. Since neither the elves nor the service person ever knows the other it helps to retain the pride of the service person. I participated as an elf last year and couldn?t wait to do it again. It is a great way to give back to those that are still watching over our freedom each day.