
I didn't participate last year. I felt let down from the year before. The previous year I knew I was going to participate so I spent all year shopping and keeping my eyesopen for SS gifts for my SS recipient and their cats/dogs.
I was given the name of someone I didn't even recall ever seeing on the forums. I did a search and found that the person had long absences from the forums for weeks and months at a time which is why I didn't recall their name.
I sent my SS gift by express post and knew that it must have arrived, but the person didn't even post about it for weeks. And when they did finally post, they didn't sound very excited and the post was about 2 sentences long (no pics) and listed about 3 of the items I had sent, and didn't even try to figure out who it was that sent it. And then they vanished from the forums again. I ended up revealing it in the new year.
I love to get gifts and I loved everything I received! But for me the greatest joy is giving, and I felt very let down by my SS recipient, so opted out of sending/receiving. However, I did assist someone in tormenting their SS recipient

And that was a lot of fun

I haven't decided if I'm going to participate this year or not. I guess I still have time to decide.