At one of my former churches, I had to do the books as well as pastor because nobody wanted to be the clerk. Over time, I began to notice that on Pastor Appreciation, my birthday, and on Christmas (even though I never asked for anything special to be done, and at least at that church actually came to wish that nothing 'special' for me ever be done again), the regular tithes and offerings for that particular week was always off by about as much as they gave me in the special offering, which was always an amount less than $100. Since it was a small struggling church and I was bivocational, (keeping the church bills paid by my secular job basically) I generally still got to contribute towards the church bills with my 'special offering'. Thankfully we are no longer in such a situation as that.