I'm with you on the mall thing. I detest going there. I much prefer strip shopping centers where you can go into a store and get out without having to avoid eye contact with kiosk vendors hawking their wares.
We started doing Secret Santa last year, and it's so much easier. I assign everyone a number on a list, and then have everyone pick a number. Whatever number they choose is who they buy for, and that's it. None of us have an over-abundance of cash, so we set a dollar amount to keep the gift purchases fairly even. It worked out well last year, and everyone was more than willing to do it again this year.