Everything’s Online, including Secret Santa

Secret Santa, known as Kris Kringle in Ireland and parts of Canada, is a game with a storied history. It originated of course as part of Christmas gift-giving, and is a fun way for a family, office, or group of friends to exchange gifts. Today - everything’s online - gosh, even most of us elves have smart phone these days. One of the hottest disputes among elves is which makes a better gift: an iPhone or an Android?

Secret Santa solves that problem and more: you work together as a team, playing a game, with each individual secretly paired with someone else. Plus, you get to know a lot about the participants.

Start a Secret Santa Gift Exchange

Playing Secret Santa, Online

Secret Santa is a fun gift exchange you can set up for any gift giving occasion. Office parties, family reunions, clubs, leagues, and all holidays - ESPECIALLY CHRISTMAS - Which is our favorite holiday! We’re elves!

Going Online

Round about 1994, when Al Gore was busy inventing the Internet, Santa sat us all down and said, "Boys. This Internet thing is going to be big! I want to get us prepared for Secret Santa going online. Heck, one day I want Secret Santa to be an app on Google Play and on iTunes."

So we sat down and brainstormed how to take Secret Santa Online and make Elfster the #1 destination for Secret Santa players. Today we’re justifiably proud that Elfster is one of the top-rated Secret Santa sites online.

Playing Secret Santa on Elfster.com

We elves at Elfster.com have generated a Secret Santa system that makes the game even more fun, and the beauty of it online is that you and your family or friends can be anywhere! Plus we’ve made the gift links easy, and by asking questions, we can help you learn about your gift designee easily. Online brings so much to the game!

Some benefits of playing Secret Santa online -

  1. Playing Secret Santa on Elfster.com allows you to include anybody, no matter where they live. This is perfect for families that are spread out all over the U.S.
  2. People in your Secret Santa group can create wish lists from the Elfster.com website which provides access to the best places to shop online.
  3. Elfster.com has taken care of all the hard work, making the Secret Santa gift exchange easy to set up, manage, and participate.

How does Elfster work? How do you play?

Become an honorary elf on Elfster.com and follow the simple steps in setting up a Secret Santa game for your office, family, fraternity, work, etc. Give us the names and email of the people that will participate, and us elves will take care of the rest. We know how to play Secret Santa, we know how it works, we know how to do Secret Santa - we’re elves, after all. And we’ve made it all easy for you! We’re totally hip, 21st century elves - we’re digital, online and connected… (Some on iPhones and some on Android, some on tablets, and some on PC’s or Macs. We even have a few hold outs playing Secret Santa on 56K modems!).

It starts with an invite. Players receive an email inviting them to join in the Secret Santa game and sign up on Elfster. They can create a wishlist on the site from hundreds of the best online place to shop. Us elves generate the game pairing up the people in your group. You get your person’s name that you will be the Secret Santa for and keep it a secret..shhhh..don’t tell. Buy them a present staying within the limits of the group (specified by the organizer of the game, can be any dollar amount). Then all you have to do is exchange your gifts on the date of the event and reveal who you are to your gift recipient. Or you can also choose to stay anonymous, however that only really works if everyone stays anonymous. Otherwise process of elimination (and some tasty warm hot cocoa made fresh by our elves in the kitchen) will spill the beans.