If you’re organising your office Christmas party and are looking for unique ways to play Secret Santa (or Kris Kringle!), we’ve put our event manager heads together and compiled some ideas below for you.
Some of these ideas will work if you’re playing as a family or group of friends too. Let us know what you think and if you use any of them > like and share on our Facebook page.
Who votes wins
When you think about it, if you have a fair amount of staff playing Secret Santa, even the $20 gift limit will add up as a total very quickly. Instead of wasting money on unwanted gifts this version ensures people want/will use what they receive!
How it works:
- You pick three retail stores you can access easily and ask every staff member to give you $20 (or whatever limit you are setting).*
- You let everyone know what the three stores are. They must let you know of 3 things they would want under the gift limit from any of these stores.
- You set up a voting slip with the name of each person and the three gifts they’ve listed underneath. Every person must secretly vote on which gift they think their co-worker would want most of the three.
- You purchase the most voted for gift for every person and they receive this during the Christmas party.
*Note: if your company likes to buy an end of year thank you gift for each staff member, forgo requesting money from your team and instead shop with the company credit card!
MATCH
This is another way for people to get gifts they want – except there is the possibility their co-workers don’t know them that well and they could miss out on their desired gift! It’s a great way to test how well your staff know each other, and maybe encourage them to get to know their colleagues a bit better.
How it works:
- You pick three retail stores you can access easily and ask every staff member to give you $20 (or whatever limit you are setting).*
- Each staff member picks a gift they would like to receive from one of these stores.
- You create a match game with the name of each team member and the gift they want (using a website like https://worksheets.theteacherscorner.net/make-your-own/match-up/ can make this process easier)
- All staff members are given a copy of the game and asked to try and match the correct gift with their co-workers.
- You purchase the gift most matched to each person and they receive this during the Christmas party – see how many correct matches were made!
Pass the gift
Remember when pass the parcel was THE best game at every birthday party you went to? Bring a little fun and some excitement to your Christmas party by reliving childhood memories with this unique way to play Secret Santa.
How it works:
- Set a spending limit and ask every team member to buy a present within the limit. Collect the presents prior to the Christmas party.
- At the Christmas party, get everyone to sit in a circle. Randomly select one gift from the pile and give it to a staff member.
- Like pass the parcel, play some music. As the music plays the gift is to be passed clock-wise around the circle. Without looking, randomly stop the music. The person holding the gift when the music stops gets it! Ask them to open it in front of their co-workers. Once opened, they must step back from the circle so they cannot receive another gift.
- Repeat until all staff have a gift.
Quiz wars
If you’re not sure what to do for your Christmas party, this game becomes the party itself.
How to play:
- Set a spending limit and ask every team member to buy a present within the limit. They must not wrap the present. Collect the presents prior to the Christmas party.
- Divide your staff into teams. The teams are going to compete against each other to ‘earn’ as many presents as they can.
- One by one show the gifts to the teams. After each gift is shown, the teams must compete against each other to win it. This may mean by answering the most questions correctly or completing a task/skill test before the other team/s. You will need to do a bit of prep work before the party to ensure you have the correct number of mini games/questions to last the number of gifts.
- At the end of the game, the team with the most gifts win. To ensure everyone in the office gets a gift, the winning team get to pick which gift they each would like, then they give the remaining gifts to people from the other teams.
Balloon dash
Have you ever seen those shows where they put a person in a cylinder and turn on the air which then blows around money and they have to try and grab as many notes as they can? It’s hilarious to watch and gets the person’s adrenaline pumping. This version has a similar feel.
How it works:
- Set a spending limit and ask every team member to buy a present within the limit. Collect the presents prior to the Christmas party.
- Label every gift with a number then write the same numbers of small slips of paper (or on the balloons themselves).
- Place each paper slip into a balloon and blow the balloon up (you can use helium or blow these up yourself).
- At the Christmas party, fill the room with the balloons and line all the staff up around the edge of the room. After the count of three, staff must run around the room and grab and pop one balloon each. The number inside the balloon matches a gift and they receive that gift.
Scavenger hunt
This is a great game if you’re having your Christmas party at your office or coming back to the office after a Christmas lunch.
How it works:
- Set a spending limit and ask every team member to buy a present within the limit. Collect the presents prior to the Christmas party.
- On the day of the Christmas party, hide all the gifts around the office. You can do this before the game is due to start so people can work out their finding strategy, just let everyone know they are not to touch the presents until you say so.
- When ready to play, start everyone at the entrance to your office. After the count of 3, everyone must run around the office trying to find a hidden gift. Whichever one they find and pick up is theirs to keep.
**you can make this game even more fun by labelling each present with a number. The person/people who collect the gift/s with the highest number get an additional token gift (this makes people search out for gifts for longer – once you pick up a gift you cannot exchange it!).
Numbers game
A sneaky and fun way to get a gift you like (*this is not our original idea, but we have played it before and it is super fun).
How it works:
- Set a spending limit and ask every team member to buy a present within the limit.
- Gifts are placed on a table during the Christmas party. When ready, ask every attendee to draw a number out of a hat (the numbers are 1 – however many people are there). Whatever number they draw is the order in which they get to choose their gift.
- The person who has number 1 gets to choose a gift from the gift table and opens it in front of everyone.
- The person who has number 2 then gets to choose a gift from the gift table and opens it in front of everyone. If they like the gift the first person has better they are allowed to swap gifts.
- Person 3 goes and can swap gifts with anyone who opened before them…and so on. By the end of the game, the last person to open a gift can literally choose any gift they want. This can be quite hilarious as some people get attached to their gifts.
Ring toss
To add some carnival fun to your Christmas party without the sneaky tricks and cheap stuffed toys which end up costing you $50.
How it works:
- Set a spending limit and ask every team member to buy a present within the limit. Collect the presents prior to the Christmas party.
- At the Christmas party, methodically place the gifts on the floor in groups around the room. On top of each gift place a small item you can fit a ring over (for example: this could be a toilet paper roll, a bottle, a witch’s hat, a can, a cut noddle or piece of hose etc.).
- During the party, get your team to divide into groups around the presents and every person has a go at trying to toss a ring over the ‘peg’. Whichever peg they successfully get a ring over, they get the present below.
And that’s our 8 unique ways to play Secret Santa! We’d love to know if you try any of them.
If you’re racking your brain trying to plan your work Christmas Party and really need someone else to take the burden, contact us today and one of our experienced event planners will jump in and do all the planning for you.
In addition to this ‘8 unique ways to play Secret Santa’ blog, we’ve also created a list of 5 unique office Christmas party ideas.