Who here does Secret Santa with Friends or Family

[ICRS]

I am doing it this year with some friends and family together, and we have some interesting rules. Just wondered what kind of rules do you people have when you do SS. Such as minimums, siblings (if any), significant others, ect.

 

[Soundmanred]

You worship Santa!??!
Blah blah flame flame...

 

[xanis]

IMO, the best rule for a Secret Santa is to keep the gift price low so everyone doesn't miss the point of why you're doing it and what the holiday is all about.

 

[ICRS]

Originally posted by: Xanis
IMO, the best rule for a Secret Santa is to keep the gift price low so everyone doesn't miss the point of why you're doing it and what the holiday is all about.

So you think their should be a maximum price? What is low? $200, $300

 

[Verse914]

we usually do $50 max. You don't have to a ridiculously expensive gift...unless you guys are just doing one gift.

 

[coldmeat]

Every time I've done a secret santa, the limit was at most $25.

 

[ICRS]

Originally posted by: coldmeat
Every time I've done a secret santa, the limit was at most $25.

Limit as in minimum? Just wondering.

 

[coldmeat]

Originally posted by: ICRS

Originally posted by: coldmeat
Every time I've done a secret santa, the limit was at most $25.

Limit as in minimum? Just wondering.

max

I've only done it at work, and in my dorm (max there was $10)

 

[oznerol]

We made this bare-bones little web app to automate the name-picking process and send emails with your secret santa.

We do a $75 minimum - no maximum. I'll generally spend $125 or so on mine. There's 8 of us, so instead of spending around $40 each, we figure at least $75 on one person is a nice compromise.

Couples can't get each other (because they end up buying gifts for each other, anyway), and you can't get yourself (obviously). The app makes adding those conditions much easier, but we used to just pick names from a hat and just re-draw until the conditions were met (we used to just limit it to not getting yourself, and forgot about no couples, because it would take forever).

We also do a $15 maximum "santa swap" thing, where we buy a gift card or some other random, generic gift and steal it from one another. It's fun.

 

[Fenixgoon]

my family does secret santa now since we're getting pretty big (mom, dad, 5 kids, + any SO's)

personally, i think it's a lot more fun - you get to really focus one getting a kickass gift for someone.

 

[ICRS]

Originally posted by: ducci
We made this bare-bones little web app to automate the name-picking process and send emails with your secret santa.

We do a $75 minimum - no maximum. I'll generally spend $125 or so on mine. There's 8 of us, so instead of spending around $40 each, we figure at least $75 on one person is a nice compromise.

Couples can't get each other (because they end up buying gifts for each other, anyway), and you can't get yourself (obviously). The app makes adding those conditions much easier, but we used to just pick names from a hat and just re-draw until the conditions were met (we used to just limit it to not getting yourself, and forgot about no couples, because it would take forever).

We also do a $15 maximum "santa swap" thing, where we buy a gift card or some other random, generic gift and steal it from one another. It's fun.

Ours is very similar except we still do the hat thing, and our minimum for the Thieving Secret Santa and Regular Secret Santa is $100 for each.

 

[Slew Foot]

Originally posted by: ICRS

Originally posted by: ducci
We made this bare-bones little web app to automate the name-picking process and send emails with your secret santa.

We do a $75 minimum - no maximum. I'll generally spend $125 or so on mine. There's 8 of us, so instead of spending around $40 each, we figure at least $75 on one person is a nice compromise.

Couples can't get each other (because they end up buying gifts for each other, anyway), and you can't get yourself (obviously). The app makes adding those conditions much easier, but we used to just pick names from a hat and just re-draw until the conditions were met (we used to just limit it to not getting yourself, and forgot about no couples, because it would take forever).

We also do a $15 maximum "santa swap" thing, where we buy a gift card or some other random, generic gift and steal it from one another. It's fun.

Ours is very similar except we still do the hat thing, and our minimum for the Thieving Secret Santa and Regular Secret Santa is $100 for each.

We do the same thing except we hate poor people and our minimum is $50000

 

[MartyMcFly3]

Don't forget about the Anandtech Secret Santa!

 

[rh71]

we used to do secret santa among friends and kept the figure at around $20... not really a min or max, just an avg. It was too quick and not much of a game on Christmas night so nowadays we do white elephant (w/ new gifts) which is a lot more fun although it's pretty easy to lose a cool gift. If you have a significant other, you can plot to get something good though since you basically have 2 tries.