Rules for Conducting an Anonymous Christmas Gift Exchange Ceremony. What to Give to Colleagues and Relatives, Friends and Strangers?

New Year is a mag­i­cal time when every­one is wait­ing for a mir­a­cle and hopes for a fairy tale. In some coun­tries, the game of “Secret San­ta” has long become pop­u­lar — this is a good tra­di­tion, the essence of which is the anony­mous exchange of New Year’s gifts.

The cer­e­mo­ny is wide­spread in the USA, Cana­da and Great Britain, and also peo­ple from a num­ber of Euro­pean coun­tries, Aus­tralia and New Zealand also like to play it. The game of “Secret San­ta” has sev­er­al names — “Secret San­ta Claus”, “Pollyan­na” or “Chris Kin­dle”. All of these titles refer to a very spe­cif­ic char­ac­ter. Every­one knows who San­ta is — this is the main Christ­mas wiz­ard, Chris Kin­dle is con­sid­ered the “Father of Christ­mas” in the Eng­lish tra­di­tion, and Pollyan­na is the hero­ine of the famous nov­el, who won the hearts of read­ers all over the world with her kind­ness, sen­si­tiv­i­ty and par­tic­i­pa­tion in oth­er peo­ple’s expe­ri­ences.

The mean­ing of the game is to secret­ly exchange New Year and Christ­mas gifts, it is held among a large num­ber of par­tic­i­pants, while the name of the per­son to whom you will give a gift is cho­sen ran­dom­ly and becomes known only to you. Until the very moment of the cer­e­mo­ny, no one even guess­es who will give gifts to whom.

Hov­er, if this is not pos­si­ble, for exam­ple, if “Secret San­ta” takes place in the form of a quest game with strangers, you can set aside a cer­tain peri­od for dona­tion, for exam­ple, a ek, when every­one should give a present to their “ward”.

It is note­wor­thy that in this case, each per­son makes his own wish list, where he indi­cates the gifts that he dreams of, and the donor choos­es from this list. Thus, the New Year’s sur­prise in any case will be pleas­ant. Although not required at all, some­times a rough price range is sim­ply set among the par­tic­i­pants so that every­one can do their job.

So, let’s dll on the rules of “Secret San­ta”. The eas­i­est option is to write the names of the par­tic­i­pants on pieces of paper, fold and shuf­fle. There­after the approx­i­mate val­ue of gifts is nego­ti­at­ed - this is nec­es­sary so that the most tight-fist­ed peo­ple do not try to get off with fixed-price wax can­dles, while their more gen­er­ous friends will go broke on brand­ed items from expen­sive bou­tiques.

After agree­ments are reached, every­one pulls a piece of paper, but at the same time does not show it to any­one. If you draw a piece of paper with your name, just show the oth­ers and put it back, then draw lots again. The per­son who choos­es your name in such a “blind” way will become your per­son­al San­ta, and you will be an anony­mous wiz­ard for the one whose note was in your hands.

After the draw, the date of the flash mob is deter­mined.

In order not to get into trou­ble, many agree in advance to make a list of pref­er­ences. As a rule, sev­er­al posi­tions are indi­cat­ed, San­ta can already choose one or more of them. But if the wish list is not com­piled and you will have to buy a present to your taste, then our advice will sure­ly come in handy.

Prob­a­bly, nowa­days there is no per­son left who has not heard about hygge. This con­cept came to us from the Scan­di­na­vian coun­tries and there it means com­fort, warmth, fam­i­ly val­ues ​​and ll-being. A cozy gift will be most lcome for Christ­mas — after all, on cold win­ter evenings you real­ly want a spir­i­tu­al atmos­phere, which will help to con­vey:

• can­dle­sticks with a set of scent­ed can­dles;
• aro­ma oils for liv­ing quar­ters;
• unusu­al hol­i­day gar­land;
• warm soft blan­ket;
• styl­ish pho­to frame;
• a large cup with a win­ter print and a set for deli­cious mulled wine.

If “Secret San­ta” is held among col­leagues, it is worth stop­ping at more neu­tral and prac­ti­cal gifts, these can be:

• wire­less mouse;
• head­phones;
• ther­mo mug;
• desk­top humid­i­fi­er;
• styl­ish diary with a pen.

It is best to com­plete sets, for exam­ple, give a note­book and a French press. It’s no secret that life in the office is fraught with a lot of has­sle, so a desk­top punch­ing bag is a good choice — an anti-stress that helps to let off steam after not entire­ly suc­cess­ful com­mu­ni­ca­tion with supe­ri­ors. For sev­er­al years now, the portable charg­er has topped the rat­ing of gifts.

This is not sur­pris­ing, every year more and more peo­ple use smart­phones that require fre­quent recharg­ing, which is why a styl­ish­ly designed por bank will sure­ly be used more than once.

Set gifts are always rel­e­vant for the New Year, Of course, it will be bet­ter if not just sets, but some unusu­al good­ies are pre­sent­ed as a present:

• a set of dec­o­rat­ed gin­ger­bread;
• pack­age of marsh­mal­lows or dried fruits in a Christ­mas wrap­per;
• a bot­tle of whiskey and rum;
• a set of sea­son­ings and set syrup for mak­ing strong warm­ing drinks;
• jams in a styl­ish pack­age;
• hon­ey.

All of the above gifts are good, but still New Year and Christ­mas, espe­cial­ly in the Secret San­ta game, you want to get some­thing unusu­al, which is unlike­ly to be pre­sent­ed on any oth­er hol­i­day. Glass­es for vir­tu­al real­i­ty — this is a very fash­ion­able gad­get, if you insert a smart­phone into such glass­es, you can play enough of 3D games, watch enough “mul­ti­di­men­sion­al” films and touch the unknown future with at least one fin­ger. In every store that sells elec­tron­ic equip­ment, you can find a wide selec­tion of glass­es mod­els and choose the right option with­in a cer­tain bud­get.

Stones for cool­ing alco­hol. Of course, such a gift is best com­bined with a bot­tle of expen­sive cognac, wine and brandy. These stones cool the drink quick­ly, are easy to clean, and look excep­tion­al­ly impres­sive in a glass. stock of warm socks — yes, it is cus­tom­ary to give socks on Feb­ru­ary 23, this present is con­sid­ered beat­en by many. But just remem­ber how many hosiery per year dis­ap­pears in the bols of the house — for sure, not a sin­gle man will refuse a seri­ous replen­ish­ment of his stocks.

Board games — the choice here is unlim­it­ed: Monop­oly, Mafia, table foot­ball. Games based on pop­u­lar TV shows and com­put­er games are always appro­pri­ate: Star Wars, as ll as Doom, Tanks beloved by men and even Game of Thrones will sure­ly please many. Would be a good idea bar gift card — just imag­ine that you can come to a restau­rant or cafe and relax there with­out spend­ing a dime.

Give a tick­et to a per­for­mance or con­cert if a famous musi­cal group comes to your city. Or maybe the stars of the cap­i­tal’s the­ater give their con­cert. Present a friend with the oppor­tu­ni­ty to go to an inter­est­ing per­for­mance, per­haps in the com­pa­ny of you. For the own­er of a smart­phone, a mini lens will be a good gift, and there can be any choice — both indi­vid­ual lens­es and a set with wide func­tion­al­i­ty. More­over, many devices can not only impose the desired effect on pho­tographs, but at the same time improve the qual­i­ty of the image.

And, of course, not a sin­gle addressee will refuse cozy sleep­ers for homeso you can safe­ly buy them, know­ing the size of your feet first.

There are some gifts that are not cus­tom­ary to give in the Secret San­ta game. First of all, this hand made prod­ucts. Not every­one man­ages to find a wor­thy use for a thing made by their own hands, besides, many crafts­men slight­ly over­es­ti­mate the lev­el of their work, and what seems to them to be a high-qual­i­ty prod­uct often is not. Decor items — toys, cush­ions, fig­urines, vas­es and fun­ny trin­kets, every­one prefers to pur­chase inde­pen­dent­ly based on their pref­er­ences, as ll as inte­ri­or design fea­tures. You should not buy the sym­bol of the com­ing year either — this is a too banal present, which will indi­cate that San­ta sim­ply did not want to take the choice of a present seri­ous­ly and respon­si­bly.

No need to give hygiene prod­ucts, espe­cial­ly for a girl. All kinds of shor foams, as ll as gels and sham­poos, some peo­ple per­ceive as a hint of their own unclean­li­ness, this spoils the whole impres­sion of the gift. Leave any com­ic presents for your loved ones — the humor of an anony­mous per­son can hurt. Now that you know what gifts you can give in the Secret San­ta game, you can safe­ly offer enter­tain­ment to your fam­i­ly, friends and col­leagues. Be sure that they will def­i­nite­ly per­ceive your idea with great enthu­si­asm!