Secret Santa vs White Elephant (Plus Yankee Swap and Dirty Santa)

Secret Santa: for one good gift instead of ten

Secret Santa is a gift exchange where everyone draws a name and shops for just that person. It's how a lot of families cut back once there are too many cousins to buy for. On a Reddit thread about a mom who wouldn't scale back her Christmas shopping, one commenter's advice was simple: "Next year do a Secret Santa. Way less gifting that way. That's what we do for the adults and we all still get the children individual presents." (source)

The fun is in the secret. For a few weeks, you're asking sneaky questions about someone's favorites while somebody else is doing the same to you. Then at the party, everyone guesses who drew them before anyone tells.

What you need: Everyone's name on a slip of paper (or a free online name drawing), a budget, and a day to open gifts.

How to play

1. Draw names a few weeks before the party. If you pull your own, put it back and draw again.
2. Keep the name you drew a secret.
3. Wrap the gift and put their name on the tag, not yours.
4. At the party, open the gifts one at a time.
5. Before anyone tells, let each person guess who their Secret Santa was.

The little things to get right

Ask everyone for a short wish list. Three ideas that fit the budget is plenty, and nobody has to guess what the quiet uncle wants.

It works by mail. If your family is spread across a few states, Secret Santa is the easiest exchange to do long distance. Have everyone ship their gift ahead and open them together on a video call.

Don't expect a game. Once the gifts are open, the exchange is over, and if someone grabbed a last-minute dud, the person they drew is stuck with it.

Where did Secret Santa come from?

Nobody knows exactly who started it, but its closest relative is an old Swedish custom called julklapp, or "Christmas knock." People would knock on a neighbor's door, leave a small gift with a joking riddle or poem, and be gone before anyone saw who it was from. (source)

The name "Secret Santa" was in American newspapers by 1933 (source), and its most famous real one lived in Kansas City. In 1979, Larry Stewart lost his job right before Christmas, then handed a drive-in carhop $20 and told her to keep the change. For the next 27 years he gave cash to strangers every December without telling anyone who he was, about $1.3 million in all. (source)

For years, the biggest one ran on Reddit. Its Secret Santa held the Guinness World Record for the largest online Secret Santa, with strangers in more than 100 countries mailing each other gifts, until Reddit ended it in 2021. (source) In 2013, one Redditor's match turned out to be Bill Gates. He gave a cow to a family in need in their name, with a note saying not to worry, they wouldn't have to build a barn. (source)

If your crowd wants more action than that, keep reading.

White Elephant: for a party that wants a game

White Elephant is a gift swap where everyone brings something wrapped for the group, so the fun happens at the party instead of at the store.

The stealing is the part everyone remembers. As one Reddit commenter put it, "White elephant is about the laughs and journey not about getting a good gift. It's a bonding moment." (source)

What you need: One wrapped gift per person, numbered slips of paper, and a steal rule everyone agrees on.

How to play

1. Everyone puts a wrapped gift in the pile and draws a number.
2. Number 1 opens a gift from the pile.
3. Each player after that opens a new gift or steals one that's already open.
4. If your gift gets stolen, open a new one or steal from someone else. You can't steal back the gift that was just taken from you.
5. Most groups freeze a gift after it's been stolen three times.
6. When the last gift is opened, number 1 gets one more chance to steal.

Where did White Elephant come from?

The name comes from a legend about a king of Siam (now Thailand) who gave rare white elephants to people who annoyed him, knowing the upkeep would ruin them. There's no record he ever did it. In Siam, a white elephant was sacred and an honor to own. The name stuck anyway: a white elephant is a gift that's more trouble than it's worth. (source)

The party came later. In the 1890s, American newspapers were writing up holiday "swap parties," where guests traded things sight unseen. One Kentucky paper in 1901 described guests bringing "four or five little bundles, wrapped so that no one else can suspect the contents," and some hosts gave prizes for the best and worst bargain. (source)

The first "white elephant party" in print was a joke in a Nebraska newspaper in 1907. Guests were told to bring something they couldn't use but was too good to throw away, and nine of the eleven women brought their husbands. (source)

The little things to get right

Say the steal rules out loud before the first gift. Otherwise half the room plays with two steals and the other half with three.

Ask for gifts people will actually want. One Reddit commenter's family had a few siblings who would "bring bad gifts, go home with good gifts, and people would feel frustrated." (source) That's why our invite asks for something anyone in the room would be happy to take home. If you love a joke gift, pair it with a real one.

Plan on 30 to 60 minutes for a big group. Every steal adds a turn, and a popular gift can change hands three times before it freezes.

Watch the steals when kids are playing. Our first Christmas party together, Brooke, Susie and I did a White Elephant with our girls, Cambrie, McKinley and Charlotte. They were about eight and nine. We all had different rules, the girls wanted the same few gifts, and none of us moms felt good taking something a daughter had her heart set on.

That Gift Game: for a White Elephant where the cards decide

Brooke and I turned that little problem into That Gift Game, a card game that runs your gift exchange. Instead of deciding whose gift to take, you play the card in your hand: trade, open, steal, or pass.

The fun starts before anything is opened. The red cards hand out the wrapped gifts by how they look, so you might have to take the biggest, the prettiest, or "the heaviest gift available." Suddenly everyone's lifting boxes and guessing what's inside, and the wrapping counts for more than usual.

Then the white cards keep the gifts moving. One sends everything one seat to the right. Another says, "Trade gifts with the person who was the last to arrive to the party," and every head turns to whoever walked in late. If you're too shy to steal somebody's gift in the middle of a game, your card makes you do it. And when your favorite leaves your hands, you get to blame the card instead of the nine-year-old holding it.

A few cards stay hidden. Pull a Block card from the surprise pile, and you can hold onto it and use it once to stop any trade, even the final trade. Nobody knows you have it until you play it.

At one softball party, a giant Reese's yardstick full of candy changed hands more than any other gift, and nobody wanted to let it go. Cynthia put it simply in her review: "Makes our gift exchange a million times more fun!"

What you need: The game and one wrapped gift per person. It plays 4 to 14 people, ages 7 and up, in 20 to 30 minutes.

How to play

1. Everyone adds a wrapped gift to the pile.
2. Take turns drawing a red card and taking the gift it describes, still wrapped, until everyone has one.
3. Deal the white cards. On your turn, play one and do what it says.
4. When the last card is played, the gift in front of you is yours to keep.

The full rules are short enough to read out loud before you start.

Still our tradition

Brooke, Susie and I kept playing with the girls every year, usually after dinner at Oregano's. One year we were all too busy to squeeze it in before Christmas, so we made it a Galentine's party instead and everyone brought Valentine gifts.

Laura used the game for her family's White Elephant and wrote in her review, "Everybody thought it was an improvement over our old method."

Yankee Swap and Dirty Santa: what changes with the name

If you grew up in New England, you probably call it Yankee Swap. In the South, it's Dirty Santa. Either way, it's mostly White Elephant with a few habits of its own.

Yankee Swap gifts lean nicer and more useful, often with a bigger budget. Some groups swap instead of steal: when you take someone's gift, they get yours in return.

The most famous Yankee Swap happened on TV. In The Office episode "Christmas Party" (2005), Michael Scott blows the office's $20 Secret Santa limit on a $400 iPod for Ryan, gets a handmade oven mitt from Phyllis, and insists everyone switch to a Yankee Swap instead. Phyllis's feelings are hurt, and the whole office fights over the iPod. (source)

Dirty Santa usually means more stealing, and gag gifts are part of the fun. Just make sure everyone knows that going in. One Christmas, someone in my family wrapped up an orange, and my mom brought a $20 gift card. If you bring a $20 gift card and go home with an orange, that's not super cool.

If the names sound fuzzy, they are. Even people who play every year mix them up: "It's different everywhere. To me a white elephant was something from your house you didn't want like regifting something... Then there was Yankee swap which had an item that's nice but under a certain dollar limit. Then there was bad Santa where it was often gag gifts. Now all the names are used interchangeable." (source)

Whatever your group calls it, put two things on the invite: the budget, and whether gag gifts count.

Why is it called Yankee Swap?

You'll often hear that it comes from prisoner swaps in the Civil War, but there's no evidence for that. Walt Whitman used "the Yankee swap" in a review of Leaves of Grass, as a nod to how much Americans love a good trade, and by 1899 a New York paper was describing an "old fashioned swapping party." Nobody has pinned down when the name moved to Christmas. (source)

Why is it called Dirty Santa?

Because of all the stealing. The name is most popular in the Southern states. (source)

Which type of gift exchange fits your group?

Here's what we'd pick for the groups we hear about most.

Little kids, or a crowd that hates stealing: One mom pictured a toddler White Elephant as "a room full of crying kids because someone took their presents." (source) She's not wrong. Pass the Presents works for every age, because nothing gets taken once it's unwrapped.

Grandparents and grandkids at one table: That Gift Game, since the cards decide who takes what. From Michele's review: "Our family plays this game every year at Christmas as our gift exchange. All ages love it."

The office: Secret Santa is the usual pick, with a budget around $15 to $25. It's the safer choice, since nobody wants to steal from the boss. (Just don't pull a Michael Scott on the budget.)

Close friends: Any of them work, but friends who know each other well get the most out of Secret Santa. Want to add a twist? Pick a theme.

A big group: Stealing games drag past 25 or 30 people, while Secret Santa works at any size. For That Gift Game, split anything over 14 into two tables.

A few more questions

Are Yankee Swap and Dirty Santa the same as White Elephant?

Mostly, yes. They're regional names for the same game, with small differences in the gifts people bring and how much stealing they allow.

Can you do Secret Santa and White Elephant at the same party?

Yes. Some families do Secret Santa for the gifts that matter and a small White Elephant just for laughs. Pick one as the main event, so nobody has to spend twice as much.

How much should you spend?

It's your call. We usually do $10 when kids are playing and $20 when it's just adults. Put "around $20" on the invite instead of "$20 or under," because "or under" is where people start cutting corners.

How many people do you need?

Secret Santa works with as few as three. The stealing games are better with six or more. That Gift Game plays 4 to 14.