For a family Secret Santa, list everyone, add a rule for each pair who live together so they can’t draw each other, and draw: each person then gets a private link with only their own match. This page opens with an example family of nine: grandparents Rose and Joe, a couple (Anna and Ben), a household of four (Chloe, David and their children Emma and Finn) and Aunt Grace. Replace the names with your own family’s.
Swapping in your family
Type over the example names, one per line. Rules for names that are no longer on the list are crossed out and ignored, so remove them with × and add your own: pick two people, keep Both ways ticked and click Add rule. Every pair inside a household needs its own rule, which is why the example’s household of four has six.
Each draw respects all of the household rules at once. When they leave no possible draw, you get told which relatives are boxed in instead of a draw that quietly breaks a rule.
The household limit
People in a household can only buy for people outside it, and only outsiders can buy for them. So no household can be more than half the group: with 9 people a household of 4 works but a household of 5 never can, however many times you draw. When one household is most of the group (a big family plus a couple of in-laws), that’s the rule that bites. Merging two small draws into one bigger one, or relaxing a rule for the adult children, fixes it.
Rules that keep a family exchange fair
- One budget for everyone, written on the reveal cards, so a teenager and a grandparent spend about the same.
- Gift ideas in the family chat before the draw. Younger children can send a picture of their wish list.
- Fold cards for people without phones. The Fold cards (PDF) button prints one card per person with the match hidden inside, which works well for grandparents and young children.
Hosting the day as well? Work out the bird with the turkey calculator, and print Christmas bingo cards for the time between dinner and the gifts.
What this page fills in for you
- Event name
- Family Secret Santa
- Budget
- $40
- Message to everyone
- We'll open the gifts after Christmas dinner. Put a few gift ideas in the family chat!
- Example group
- Grandma Rose, Grandpa Joe, Anna, Ben, Chloe, David, Emma, Finn, Aunt Grace
- Can't draw each other
- Grandma Rose ↔ Grandpa Joe, Anna ↔ Ben, Chloe ↔ David, Chloe ↔ Emma, Chloe ↔ Finn, David ↔ Emma, David ↔ Finn, Emma ↔ Finn
Change any of it before you draw. Your edits and your draw are saved in this browser for this page only, separately from the main Secret Santa generator, so you can come back here to resend a link.