And be sure they know it’s different than White Elephant (more on that later).
Let’s be honest, this isn’t exactly a hard game to play. After opening the gift, they can shout out some guesses of who they think it might be. Part of the fun of Secret Santa is just that-it’s a secret! The person receiving the gift doesn’t know who it’s from. (If that just made you think of The Office, points for you.)ĭuring the gift exchange, everyone in the group takes turns opening up the gift they received from their Secret Santa. With the emergence of the new omicron variant of Covid-19, one of the most appealing parts of Secret Santa that isn’t usually available in a white elephant gift exchange is that it can be played socially distanced and from anywhere in the world - you can simply send a gift by mail and reveal your identity when it’s received, thus eliminating the pressures of traveling and physically gathering.Playing Secret Santa is also a great way to get that typical gift-giving experience without carrying the heavy price tag of buying a gift for every single person! Usually, there’s a price limit set so no one can gift an iPod while someone else is giving a homemade oven mitt. If they can’t guess, the Secret Santa confesses. At gift-giving time, each recipient must find their gift and guess who their Secret Santa is. All gifts are placed in a general area.
When the Secret Santa wraps their gift, they should label it with the recipient’s name but cannot indicate who provided the gift.Each person is responsible for buying a gift for their selected person.Each person chooses a name from the box but can’t reveal their selection to anyone in the group.All of the participants’ names are placed into a hat, box or similar container.However, you’re not allowed to reveal whose Secret Santa you are until it’s time to open the gifts. Secret Santa - sometimes known as Kris Kringle - involves the same kind of mystery as a white elephant exchange, but each person in the group is assigned and aware of a designated person they’ll be gifting to. Anyone whose gift is stolen then has the opportunity to either open a new present or steal another gift (though they cannot steal the same gift back).During each player’s turn, they can either choose an unwrapped gift from the pile or steal a previously opened gift from another player.Players draw numbers to figure out when it will be their turn to choose a gift.(We're assuming you're taking part in the kinder, gentler version of a white elephant exchange, and not the original, where you're expected to give gag gifts or intentionally awful presents.) To help even the odds, most white elephant gift exchanges work best when all the gifts align in cost - typically within the $30-to-$75 range. What is a white elephant gift exchange?Ī white elephant gift exchange - sometimes referred to as a Yankee swap - is a fun holiday activity in which everyone brings one wrapped gift and leaves with a different one.
To help you determine the best white elephant and Secret Santa gifts, we perused Select shopping guides with an eye toward reader favorites and picked highly rated gifts that are worth considering right now. They can also be relatively low-pressure gift events compared to the rest of your holiday shopping list, whether you’re shopping for a generic one-size-fits-all gift for your white elephant exchange or you’re looking for a specific person for Secret Santa.īut as the final weeks of the holiday season draw closer, experts continue to echo the same warnings they did before the Black Friday and Cyber Monday craze: Place your orders as early as possible to avoid delayed gifts at the hands of global supply chain issues. White elephant and Secret Santa gift exchanges are some of the most popular traditions among friends, co-workers and family during the holiday season.