Getting together to celebrate the holidays usually involves exchanging gifts. Depending on the size of your group, this can become quite an expensive celebration so it’s not uncommon that friends and families often turn to Secret Santa type of events.
Traditionally, Secret Santa works like this: each person in the group draws another person’s name to find out who they will give a gift to. This way, each guest only needs to buy one present plus there’s the added fun of guessing who drew whom at the actual event.
I strongly suggest using an online service to draw names. It’s the easiest and most reliable way of guaranteeing no one will draw their own names. And you can even establish blockers like not allowing spouses to draw each other.
For the reveal, instead of just describing your secret santa for everyone to guess who, you can:
- Draw or mime things about them
- Answer Yes or No questions about them
- Describe the opposite of them
- Impersonate them
- Play a song that represents them
You can also reverse it and have receivers open their gifts and guess who drew their names based on what they got.
But if you’re trying to up your secret santa guessing game, I’ve collected a few ideas on how to make your Secret Santa unique and special.
White Elephant
You probably know this one. In this format, each guest buys and wraps a gift without a specific receiver in mind. At the event, all gifts are put under the tree and a lottery determines the order in which guests will choose and open one gift. However, after the first person picks and opens theirs, each next guest can either pick a new one from the tree or steal one that has already been opened. It all ends once everyone has a gift. But make sure to establish a rule for maximum number of steals otherwise it can go on forever. Usually, a gift can only be stolen 3 times, after that, it can’t be stolen again.
Gift Exchange Game
Another option can be the Gift Exchange Game. In this case, gifts are randomly distributed among participants. Everyone opens to see what they got. Then, each by each they draw a card from a hat that tells them who to pass it to. Here are examples from Love Our Crazy Life and Pretty My Party.
Get to Know You Santa Toss
For this one, each guest holds the present they bought and sits in a circle. A list of statements about them will be said out loud. When a guest hears a statement that applies to them, they get up. Everyone standing exchanges gifts and sits back down. It’s a great opportunity to find out new things about your friends so customizing it to the group is the best way to go. But for inspiration, here is a template from Kara Creates.
Poke a Tree (for kids)
A great option for kids is the Poke-a-Tree or Punch-a-Present game. All you’ll need are plastic cups, tissue paper, a board and some hot glue. The more cups the better since you’ll only be able to fit small stocking stuffers in them. If you have maybe 3 per kid, each one can get 3 small gifts.
To play, I like to have a list of challenges they need to complete in order to earn their poke. Stuff like:
- Sing a christmas song
- Laugh like santa
- Draw a snowman
- etc
Well, this is my last post in 2021 so I wish you all a very happy and healthy Holidays. Hopefully we’ll all be able to get together more often in 2022.