Guide · Templates

Secret Santa rules: three announcements you can copy

Here are three finished announcements: one for an office, one for a family and one for a group that only meets online. Copy one whole, change the names and dates, and paste it in with your own name at the bottom. After each one come the exclusions it implies and what they cost in possible draws.

Templates3, copy-paste Ten people, five couples440,192 draws Household of four in six0 draws

All three answer the same five questions before anyone asks: what to spend, when and how the gifts change hands, what happens to a late joiner, whether homemade and re-gifted things count, and how to opt out.

Draw the names

The office announcement

For a team channel: people who share a building, a fixed handover, and a budget that has to work for the most junior salary in the room as well as the most senior.

Office gift exchange: reply by Wednesday 3 December

Reply in by Wednesday 3 December. I'll draw that evening and send each person a link with the name they drew. No sign-up, no email addresses.

Budget: $25, as a ceiling. Something well chosen at $8 is a good gift and nobody is checking receipts. I'm not going to police it; just don't go well over, because a $60 gift puts whoever spent $22 in an awkward spot.

Handover: wrapped, in the box by the kitchen, by 9am on Thursday 18 December, name on the outside and nothing else. We open them at 3pm.

Joining late: ask, and the answer is yes. One person then has to volunteer to change who they had, and they end up knowing a pairing they otherwise wouldn't.

Homemade counts. Re-gifting counts if the thing is good and has never been used: a bottle you won't drink, yes; the conference tote, no.

Allergies or hard nos: send me a line and I'll attach it to your name so whoever draws you sees it.

Opting out: reply out. That's the entire message. You don't owe me a reason and I won't ask for one.

What it implies. Usually no exclusions at all. Everyone may draw anyone except themselves, which every draw rules out. Each rule you add is one you will later have to explain to somebody who feels singled out by it. The exclusion people do ask for is keeping colleagues in the same department apart, which works exactly like a household.

What it costs. Very little at office sizes. Twelve colleagues with no exclusions have 176,214,841 possible draws. Put them in six departments of two and 59,245,120 remain, about a third. Pairing everybody off removes roughly two thirds of the possible draws at any size from six people up, and that only matters when the group is small.

The family announcement

For a group chat with your relatives in it: couples, an uneven spread of what money means to each household, and at least one person who would rather sit it out but would never say so unprompted.

Christmas draw: adults only, $30, names out on Sunday

Every adult who wants in, tell me by Sunday. I'll draw that evening and send each of you a link with the name you drew. Please read to the end; the last line matters most.

Budget: $30, a ceiling. It is there to protect whoever $30 is a real number for. To spend more on somebody, do that privately, outside the draw.

Handover: bring it wrapped to Christmas dinner with the name on it; we do them after pudding. If you can't be there, post it to arrive by the 23rd.

Households: nobody draws anyone they live with. I set that in the tool, so you can't be handed your own husband by accident. Tell me before Sunday if yours has changed.

Joining late: if you're a new partner, a new housemate or a last-minute yes, message me. After the draw it costs one person their clean surprise, because somebody has to volunteer to change who they had.

Homemade counts and always has. Re-gifts count too, as long as they're good and unused. The thing that's been moving between two cupboards since January doesn't, and we all know it.

Opting out: if you'd rather not this year, tell me and it's done. No reason needed and I won't repeat it. Money, time, or simply not fancying it are the same answer to me, and I'd far rather you said so than dreaded it in silence.

What it implies. Households, meaning everyone under one roof: a married pair, an adult child still at home, three siblings sharing a flat. The rule runs both ways, and it is most of why the draw is worth doing, because a gift you could have handed over at breakfast is not a surprise.

What it costs. Households are the expensive rule, and the cost shows in small groups. Ten people with no exclusions have 1,334,961 possible draws. As five couples, 440,192 remain, which is plenty, and finding one takes about eight shuffles. Six people with a household of three drop from 265 draws to 36. A household of four inside six leaves exactly zero: everyone in a household gives to somebody outside it, so a household can never be more than half the group. Four people who are two couples have four valid draws, and adding not the person you had last year can take that to none. When a small family of couples runs out of draws, the fix is to add people and keep the rules.

The remote and online-friends announcement

For a Discord server or a long-running group chat: postage, currencies that don't match, and no room in which anything is physically handed over.

Gift exchange: in by Sunday, ship by Friday 12 December

React or reply by Sunday. I'll draw that night and send everyone a link privately with the name they drew.

Budget: about $20 in your own currency. Don't convert precisely; nobody is auditing exchange rates. Postage is on top, which isn't fair on whoever is furthest away, so if shipping pushes you well past it, say so.

Dates: ship by Friday 12 December so slow post still lands in time. Nobody opens anything until the call on the 27th. We open them on camera, and that's the best part.

Addresses: don't post yours in this channel, and I'm not making a spreadsheet. When your giver is ready to send they'll message you directly and ask; reply to them with your address and nothing else. If somebody asks you for yours, just send it and don't tell anyone who asked.

Joining late: ask. After the draw it costs one person a change of recipient and one extra pairing they'll know about, so earlier is much better.

Homemade and digital count if they're picked with that person in mind; re-gifting counts if it's good and unused.

Opting out: reply out, or say nothing at all. I'll read silence as out and won't chase you. No reason needed and none will be asked for.

What it implies. Usually no exclusions here either. Friends who don't share an address can draw each other freely, and the only rule this announcement adds is social: don't reveal yourself before the call.

What it costs. Eight people with no exclusions have 14,833 possible draws, and the same eight as four couples have 4,752, which is comfortable. The rule that hurts a small remote group is not the person you had last year, because it applies on top of every other rule. Four people who are two couples have exactly four valid draws, and blocking last year's pairings can remove all four. If that happens, the tool names the rule that broke it before you press anything.

Sharing postal addresses without a spreadsheet

A remote exchange needs postal addresses, and the usual answer is a shared sheet: one link in the chat, one row per person. Avoid it. Everyone in the group can read every address on it, when each giver only needs one. Anyone the link reaches after it leaves the group can read them too, and links get forwarded. The sheet has no end date, so the exchange finishes in December and the sheet is still there the following March. And it lives in one person's personal cloud account, so everyone's home address is only as safe as that account.

The safe version is small and boring. Nobody publishes an address anywhere, including to the organizer. When a giver is ready to send, they message their recipient one-to-one and ask, and the recipient replies in that thread with the address and nothing else. The announcement says in advance that if somebody asks for your address you send it and don't say who asked, so the question gives nothing away to anyone else. Once the parcel arrives, both of you delete the message. That leaves one copy, held by the person who has to post it.

The cost: asking usually reveals the giver to one person, a few days early. Most groups accept that. To keep the secret to the end, order from a shop that ships direct with a gift note and no sender name, or have somebody who isn't playing pass the addresses on.

Editing these without breaking them

Change the amounts, the dates, the currency, the channel and the jokes, and cut whatever doesn't apply. Keep these four things, in whatever words you would normally use.

The budget as a ceiling. If the figure reads as a target, everyone aims for it exactly, and then an $8 gift looks like a statement. Enforcement is the awkward half and there is no clever fix: say once, publicly, that you are not going to police it, then don't. One overspender is a small problem. A group totting up each other's receipts is a bigger one, and a policing rule creates it.

A named handover. A date, a place and a mechanism, in one sentence. Most exchanges that go wrong go wrong at the handover: a gift left in a drawer, a parcel posted on the 22nd, four people who thought it was next Thursday.

The late-joiner line, with the cost inside it. Saying yes is easy. Saying yes and naming what it costs is what stops somebody feeling misled afterwards.

The opt-out that asks for no excuse. This is the line people cut, and it does the most work. Let me know if you can't take part asks for a reason; reply out and that's the whole message does not. Somebody is having an expensive year, and for them the exchange should be a nice thing that happens, with no bill attached.

Frequently asked questions

What is a reasonable Secret Santa budget?

Offices commonly land between $20 and $30, family draws between $25 and $50, and remote groups lower, because postage comes on top. No single figure suits every group, and deciding it for the group usually goes better than putting it to a vote. Write it as a ceiling: if the number reads as the figure to hit, a well-chosen $8 gift looks like a statement.

How do you stop people going over the Secret Santa budget?

Mostly you can't, and trying costs more than the overspending does. Say once, in public, that the budget is a ceiling, that nobody is checking receipts, and that going well over puts everyone else in an awkward position. That gives the group a shared expectation without making anyone the inspector. If one person still goes far over, that is their problem, and the group can let it go.

Can someone join the draw after the names have been drawn?

Yes, at a cost you should state up front: one participant volunteers to change who they had, and that volunteer ends up knowing one pairing they otherwise would not. Ask for the volunteer in public, and don't pick someone privately. If two or three want in late, a full redraw is cleaner: one announcement, a new draw ID, and nobody has to say who they had.

Is re-gifting or a homemade gift allowed?

Homemade almost always counts, and it is often the best thing in the room. Re-gifting is fine on two conditions: the item is good, and it has never been used. What people object to is the unwanted object that has been circling for years. Settle both in the announcement, because the people most likely to want to do either are the least likely to ask.

How should a remote group share postal addresses?

One at a time, in the one-to-one message where the gift is being arranged, and never in a shared spreadsheet. A sheet can be read by the whole group at once and by anyone the link is forwarded to, and it stays in somebody's personal cloud account for years after the exchange. Nobody publishes an address. Each giver asks their own recipient, and everyone is told in advance to send it without saying who asked.