Anyone do a Secret Santa with their families?

[Shoopy]

If you do:

-Have you always done this or is this recent?

-How did the implementation process go? (LOL can you tell I''m at work

) Did you have a family that wasn''t really into it but ended up loving it?

-Can you share what your family does in terms of selecting the person and giving the gift?

TIA!

 

[Smurfysmiles]

My family has never done it but DH''s family does it. They have succccch a huuuggee family!!! We''re talking about 50 people here. Anyways, we have a family golf tourny every year and everyone camps out. Sometime during those couple of days someone goes around with a bucket with everyone''s names in it and we each pick one. You are only allowed to pick once you are married so it''s my first year getting to pick a name and I am so excited to give him his gift Basically we just send the gift to wherever that person is at Christmas.

 

[Hudson_Hawk]

We do it every year with my immediate family and we all like it. Our budget is $50 and names are pulled out of a hat. You can''t have yourself or your spouse. One person (me) does the choosing and communication around Thanksgiving. Everyone submits a list of ideas within the established budget.

We do a "good gift" Yankee Swap with our extended family that''s always a big hit. Gift budget is $20.

 

[treefrog]

We''ve been doing it for a few years now. We set a budget and draw names sometime when we''re all together. We use a free site called christmaswishlist.net We can submit our own wish list items and people can update what''s been bought. This is mostly helpful for my nieces and nephews so we can see what they want and can update it so others don''t buy the same thing. You can''t see what''s been purchased from your own list. It''s been working pretty well for us.

Treefrog

 

[Shoopy]

Date: 12/22/2009 12:10:08 PM
Author: treefrog
We''ve been doing it for a few years now. We set a budget and draw names sometime when we''re all together. We use a free site called christmaswishlist.net We can submit our own wish list items and people can update what''s been bought. This is mostly helpful for my nieces and nephews so we can see what they want and can update it so others don''t buy the same thing. You can''t see what''s been purchased from your own list. It''s been working pretty well for us.

Treefrog

I like the idea of that site.

 

[Hudson_Hawk]

There''s another site called Elfster, which is like that.

 

[MichelleCarmen]

Years back we did it. . .drawing names out of a hat type of thing. Some years it went good for others, but I always got weird things like clothes many sizes too big or super out of style. One year I was given silver metalic Keds and a matching purse.

I always put a lot of effort in giving pretty gifts, like scarves, etc., and I would spend the limit of $50.

 

[Hudson_Hawk]

Date: 12/22/2009 4:48:50 PM
Author: MC
Years back we did it. . .drawing names out of a hat type of thing. Some years it went good for others, but I always got weird things like clothes many sizes too big or super out of style. One year I was given silver metalic Keds and a matching purse.


I always put a lot of effort in giving pretty gifts, like scarves, etc., and I would spend the limit of $50.

At least your shoes matched your purse

 

[swimmer]

We just started last year with DH's family. It was someone else's great idea! It went OK, as in I picked out good stuff for the person I picked and the person DH picked, but some other fam members did seem to walk around the house right before the exchange and wrap a random item lying around. DH got a half used box of hand-warmers and I got a junior's sized pj pants (I'm 5'10"). This year might be better as I've been emailed by folks asking what other peeps might want. The only thing is that one mom has to purchase the gift she pulls, the gift her dh pulls, and a grown child of hers who lives at home. Not fair, but I suppose those are the dynamics. So, getting everyone to agree to do it ($30 limit) was the easy part, you just can't get miffed if you get say, used tupperware, since the person who gives to you might not be the person you are closest to in the fam. Good luck, it can be a real stress reliever and money saver while being a good time for all. We had a great time picking names and not divulging this year. Hopefully it gets better from year to year.

Now convincing DH that he still had to get ME a prezzie, that was challenging. Well, till I went to Macys

 

[Sabine]

Dh''s dad''s side of the family does this. His dad is one of 7 kids, and they all have kids (and some grandkids) so it would be impossible to buy for everyone. It had been going on before I met dh so I don''t know how it was implemented, but I do know that there was debate about what age you would be before participating (do college kids participate?) and every year there is a debate about the spending limit (it''s between 50-75). Most of the family gets together on thanksgiving, so we would pick names from a hat then and just assign whoever is left to who wasn''t at thanksgiving. And we exchange on christmas day over dinner and mail gifts to whoever isn''t there (like us this year

).