Family Secret Santa: How to Run One With Every Household

Most families want the gift to come from outside the home, so a couple or two siblings don’t simply swap with each other. In the Secret Santa generator, open Keep apart and press Add a group for each household, then tap the names that live there. Nobody in a group draws anyone else in it.

Five families of four work fine. The one thing that can’t work is a household with more than half of the people in the draw, because there aren’t enough others for them to draw. If that happens, the page says who’s stuck, so you can change a group or add someone.

Settle three things in the family chat first: the budget, the day you’ll open gifts, and whether children are in the main draw. Then type the budget and date into the generator, and they show on every person’s link.

Pick a budget the tightest wallet in the family is happy with, because a Secret Santa should take pressure off. Asking for wishes helps most with relatives you see once a year, so add a gift wish beside anyone’s name, and only the person who draws them sees it.

You have two good choices. Put older children in the main draw and give them a parent’s help with buying, or run a second draw just for the children, with a smaller budget, so they all open something on the day.

For younger children, send the link to a parent, who can open it with them and spin the wheel together. A child seeing a wheel land on a cousin’s name is half the fun.

After the draw, each person has their own private link. Type an address beside each name to email it, or copy it into a message. As the organizer, you never see who drew whom, so you can take part too.

Press Email me to keep a private link to the whole list, so you can send a link again when someone loses theirs.

Spin a wheel of names to choose who opens next, so nobody rushes and everyone sees each gift. Finish with a round of guessing who gave what, and keep the room going with a Christmas game afterwards.