Does your office hold a Secret Santa exchange every year? This fun tradition has been around for decades and comes in a variety of incarnations. Typically, everyone in the group secretly chooses the name of someone else from a hat and then go out and buy them a small gift. It can be something useful or funny, depending on the group. Gifts are exchanged before Christmas and the secret Santas may or may not reveal themselves.
There are a lot of variations on the traditional Secret Santa game. We’ve found two fun variations for everyone to try out in their office this year:
Yankee Swap – Also known as Yankee Doodle or Dirty Santa, this adds some excitement to normal Secret Santa. Each person brings a wrapped gift, then someone is randomly chosen to select first. They can choose any present they want, and must open it for all to see.
The second person then chooses and opens a gift, and then must decide if they keep it or swap it for the first person’s gift. Each person in order then gets to select a present, open it and decide whether to keep it or swap it for any other gift someone has already opened. This goes through to the end, when the very first person gets to decide if they keep the gift they are holding or do one final exchange.
White Elephant – This is like Yankee Swap but with yet another twist. On the first turn, the person assigned with #1 picks out a gift and opens it so all can see what it is. On the second turn, the person assigned with #2 gets the choice of “stealing” #1’s unwrapped gift or choosing a wrapped one from the pile. If #2 steals #1’s gift, then #1 must choose and open a wrapped gift.
As subsequent players take their turns, they either select a new gift or take any already opened gift from any of the other players. Have any player who has a gift taken away either choose a new gift or take an already-opened gift from another player.
Does your office hold a Secret Santa exchange every year? This fun tradition has been around for decades and comes in a variety of incarnations. Typically, everyone in the group secretly chooses the name of someone else from a hat and then go out and buy them a small gift. It can be something useful or funny, depending on the group. Gifts are exchanged before Christmas and the secret Santas may or may not reveal themselves.
There are a lot of variations on the traditional Secret Santa game. We’ve found two fun variations for everyone to try out in their office this year:
Yankee Swap – Also known as Yankee Doodle or Dirty Santa, this adds some excitement to normal Secret Santa. Each person brings a wrapped gift, then someone is randomly chosen to select first. They can choose any present they want, and must open it for all to see.
The second person then chooses and opens a gift, and then must decide if they keep it or swap it for the first person’s gift. Each person in order then gets to select a present, open it and decide whether to keep it or swap it for any other gift someone has already opened. This goes through to the end, when the very first person gets to decide if they keep the gift they are holding or do one final exchange.
White Elephant – This is like Yankee Swap but with yet another twist. On the first turn, the person assigned with #1 picks out a gift and opens it so all can see what it is. On the second turn, the person assigned with #2 gets the choice of “stealing” #1’s unwrapped gift or choosing a wrapped one from the pile. If #2 steals #1’s gift, then #1 must choose and open a wrapped gift.
As subsequent players take their turns, they either select a new gift or take any already opened gift from any of the other players. Have any player who has a gift taken away either choose a new gift or take an already-opened gift from another player.