Secret Santa ideas, presents and gifts

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Secret Santa

The Secret Santa idea is something that has developed over recent years primarily in the workplace to solve a problem: Giving presents can be an expensive business and, if you work with a lot of people, how can you justify giving a present to one and not to another? The answer is Secret Santa.

The basic concept of the Secret Santa is that each member of the group only has to buy a present for one other person in the group, and that person is chosen at random.

The names of all the participants (often by department in a large organisation) are put into a hat (or waste bin, whatever comes to hand really) and each person draws a name. Replacing it and choosing another, if it’s their name.

You then buy a gift for that person only. This ensures that everybody gets a present but no one has to buy more than one, which keeps costs down. This has the additional advantage that each person doesn’t have to rack their brains to think of lots of original ideas but only has to think of only one.

With a Secret Santa there is often a spending limit as well, which avoids a spending war and restricts people who like to show off buying expensive presents. Another option is that the name of the gift-giver is not put on the present, or the giver might actually present the gift at a special event.

Other ways of playing Secret Santa include not knowing the identity of the person you’re giving to, this has issues where there are possible gender differences. There is the potential for problems where a person has to give a present to someone they loathe, some Secret Santas use an independent referee (just someone not involved in the giving or receiving in that group) to make adjustments or provide general (e.g. gender) information about the recipient.

Secret Santa can help to contain some of the excesses of Christmas and bring people in a group together in a time of goodwill.

Some Secret Santa gift ideas to get you started: