Secret Santa Rules

If you’ve heard friends talk about doing a Secret Santa gift exchange with their families or coworkers, but you weren’t quite sure how to do it, SneakySanta.Com is here to help!

First up, we call it a “Sneaky” Santa gift exchange around here because that’s who we are and it sounds way more fun. Having fun is what this should all be about anyway, right? Ok, the basic rules are simple:

1. You need a group of three or more people. You can do it with just two, but we’re pretty sure you are going to have a strong guess about who your Sneaky Santa may be.
2. Next, you’ll want to draw names for each person. The old-school way you would do this would be to write all the names on strips of paper, throw them in a hat (or vase, plastic bucket, flower pot, or anything else you had handy that was relatively sanitary), and each person would draw a name from the hat.
3. Now you’ve picked a name, and someone in the group has also picked your name. You want to do everything you can to keep that a secret until the day when your group is revealing who the Santas are. The number one rule for doing a Sneaky Santa is to have fun, and a huge part of the fun is the suspense surrounding just who might have your name!
4. Your group may have established some additional rules, like a min/max dollar limit for gifts, themes for gifts, no gift cards, etc. No matter what the group rules are, when everyone plays along it ensures that the whole group has a great time.
5. Have fun with it! The whole concept of Secret Santa is intended to add more joy and fun to the Christmas season. Don’t take it too serious and enjoy the fun of sharing things you like with one another, trying to guess who picked your name, and surprising each other with fun gifts. Try to make it easy for the person who picked your name to know the kinds of things you like, and have fun surprising the person you picked!

So, we can’t stress it enough, fun is really what it is all about. At SneakySanta.Com, we love providing a service that has been a part of a joyful Christmas tradition for families and friends for over a decade. We do all that we can to make it easy for you to organize your group. You can send invites, set up rules for your name drawing (can't pick spouse, etc.), share wishlists, and even send anonymous "Sneaky Messages" to each other. On top of that, we back it up with world-class support to make sure you can focus on the fun.