Everything you need to know about Secret Santa!

Have you found yourself organising this year's Secret Santa for your extended family or the office? Here we tell you everything you need to know - from how it works, getting started and the top three funny secret santa gifts; we have got you covered!

So first things first - we've made a secret santa generator for you. Simply enter the names of your group in the generator below. Choose if certain people shouldn't be paired together. Then send to all your group!

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What is Secret Santa?

In case you didn’t already know, according to the Wikipedia definition, Secret Santa is ‘is a Western Christmas tradition in which members of a group or community are randomly assigned a person to whom they give a gift. The identity of the gift giver is to remain a secret and should not be revealed.’ When there is a larger group of family, friends or colleagues, Secret Santa means it is a lot less hassle and usually a lot cheaper than buying for every single person in the social circle.

How do I organise a Secret Santa?

Decide who wants to be a part of it

To make Secret Santa a success, there must be willing participants - the more the merrier. Summon your team at work, friendship circles or extended family as a group who can join in. Make sure everyone is willing to keep it a secret, stick to a budget and an exchange date … which leads us nicely to the next steps …

Set a budget

The usual idea of Secret Santa is to make Christmas time a little bit more affordable so that you only have to buy one person in the group a gift rather than buying for your entire office! And of course it is something fun! So set a budget that is affordable for everyone and encourages them to be a little bit creative - common budgets are £5 or £10 per person. You can buy very funny Secret Santa gifts for these little amounts - it is amazing how far your money can go when you put your mind to it!

Confirm a gift exchange date

As long as you live close by or all work in the same office building, you can set a date that you will all meet to exchange your gifts! Don’t forget you will need an out of sight location for everyone to drop their presents at so that the Secret Santa stays secret! Perhaps if your friendship circle now lives across the country? You could agree on a date to put them in the post so that Secret Santa lands on doorsteps all at the same time? Take it one step further and gather on Zoom to open them together virtually!                                                                            

Allocate the names

You will need a way to make sure that each Secret Santa is allocated a name to buy for. The old fashioned way, as long as you can all get together, is to throw everyone’s name into a hat and then each person picks out a name and that is who they are to buy for. If they pull out their own name, they just put it back and pick another - Simple! If that seems like too much work, or like we said before your friendship group is across the country (or even the world!) then there are plenty of online Secret Santa generators who will do it for you as long as you have everyone’s email address. The online generators often offer the functionality to ensure that two people who might not be best to get each other, don’t! For example they might be separated parents in an extended family WhatsApp group. They want to be involved, but one getting the other could have disastrous consequences (not to mention fairly offensive gifts!!!)

Buy the gift

So now is the time to get your thinking cap on and buy the gift! It can be difficult when there is a small budget to stick to so most people tend to try and get funny Secret Santa gifts, unless the person loves chocolate for example, you can buy a lot of chocolate with £10.

Help! I don’t know what to buy …

I hear you cry! Well we said we had it all covered so here are the top 3 funny Secret Santa gifts on a budget for the unsuspecting gift receiver in your life.

Pens with Attitude

These Pens with Attitude sets are perfect for the co-worker in your life who has a sarcastic sense of humour and loves a passive aggressive stationary set! They are bound to be a talking point in the office too … that’s if they are brave enough to use them in the office of course!

Photo Socks

These full face photo socks are perfect for the slightly self obsessed family member or colleague who is always checking themselves out in the mirror … or if you happened to draw your other half in the family Secret Santa what better gift to get them than socks with your face all over them!

Personalised Wine Label

If you are really stuck as to what to get then try this personalised wine label for your best friend who you know will appreciate the gift of a glass of wine … it makes it that little bit more funny and shows the extra thoughtfulness that has gone into your otherwise, lets face it, cop out Secret Santa gift!

Still struggling?

Have you really drawn the short straw and hardly know the person you are buying for? At your wits end with it all and having a complete mind blank? Then ask the experts to find the perfect Secret Santa gift instead - Needi to the rescue! In three easy steps they will take away the stress of it all … simply answer a few questions to help them get to know the recipient better, let them know your budget and within twenty four hours you will have an array of perfect Secret Santa gifts to choose from! All you need to do then is pick your favourite and wait for it to arrive at your door - they will even gift wrap it too! Job Done.

I would assume that, because you are the person reading this blog and organising the Secret Santa that you are the ‘organiser’ in your social group at home or at work who sorts and books everything - so you know how difficult it can be to get people to pay you what they owe sometimes … we can help make collecting money quicker and easier so they have no excuse -  download the Collctiv app for free here and see for yourself!

In doing so, you will have access to Needi’s services straight through the app, as well as being able to buy vouchers for all sorts of different products and experiences.

Simply download the Collctiv app for free and all this will be yours!  

How much does it cost to use Collctiv?

There are no mandatory fees involved when you use Collctiv – friends can choose to make a donation to Collctiv when paying in and you could make a voluntary contribution when you withdraw the money you have collected but there is no obligation to at all.  

Organisers bring people together

Since 2019 Collctiv has helped over 1 million people from 140 countries come together by making it simple for Organisers to collect money from groups. Whether it's wedding collections, group holidays or grassroots sports teams - download our free app today and start bringing people together!