Family Secret Santa, step by step
- Start a list. A name (e.g. “Christmas at Grandma's”), a gift budget (e.g. “$30”) and how the draw happens. No account and no e-mail.
- Send the link to the family. In the family chat, in a text message, or show the QR code at Sunday dinner. Everyone joins with just their name, and a parent can add their children from their own phone. Not sure what to write? Ready-made invitation texts.
- Everyone writes a letter to Santa. Gift ideas, a photo or a link to the gift, so nobody has to guess.
- The draw. Nobody draws themselves, from 3 people on no two people draw each other, and the organizer can add pairs who don't draw each other, e.g. spouses.
Couples don't draw each other
Before the draw, the organizer adds pairs in “Who doesn't draw whom” on their page, e.g. spouses or brothers and sisters who live together. The others don't see the pairs. Exclusions: who and how many.
The draw and the names
You choose them when you set up the list. The names can stay hidden until the gift sack opens, e.g. on Christmas Eve.
When is the draw?
When you click “Draw the letters”
Only you have the button. Click it once everyone has joined.
When the majority decides
Everyone can vote. With 3 votes of 5, the draw happens by itself.
On a chosen day
The draw happens by itself on the day and at the hour you pick. Nobody clicks anything.
What does the draw show?
The letter now, the name later
First the letter, without a name. On the day the gift sack opens, the name shows up.
A number instead of the name
You write the number on the parcel. When the gift sack opens, everyone gets the number of their own parcel.
Everyone at one table?
No letters needed, just the names drawn right now, e.g. at a family dinner? Type the names and pass the phone around: Draw names on one phone.
Family far away
Grandparents in another city or cousins abroad join on their own phones and read the letter they drew, with the gift budget. So the gift can go by post.
The address for the parcel, a digital gift and opening together on a video call: Virtual Secret Santa.