In the spirit of the season, Santa's helper Merlin Hughes, who doubles in real life as a Java developer, presents the design and implementation of a J2EE-based secret Santa Web application, along with a discussion of the tools and technologies that can be used to ease the development of such applications. The articles (also see Part 2 and Part 3) provide a broad overview of how to build a J2EE application from the ground up, using some modern tools and frameworks, with details of how these different technologies work together to produce the end result. While not intended as detailed treatises on any individual technology, these articles instead serve as guides to developing a Web application with J2EE. This first article focuses on the beans, their design and implementation, and the use of XDoclet to accelerate their development and deployment.