Secret Santa has long since been a popular holiday gift giving tool at the workplace… but in this economy it’s becoming increasingly popular for families, and some websites and retailers are helping to make it easier.
The traditional Secret Santa works like this: Each member of a participating group is assigned another member to give a gift. Since you only have to buy one present, you save money. But now, thanks to a slew of websites you no longer have to pick out of a hat or guess what your secret Santa pick would want.
“Everybody gets to say what they’d like to have without, without saying buy me this,“ said Laura Gibson from Spartanburg who has been doing Secret Santa with her family for 10 years.
Websites like Elfster say the number of gift-exchanges this season is up more than 50 percent from last year according to founder Peter Imburg. Elfster allows you to create free group exchanges where you can choose spending limits. You put in the emails of participants and the site does the name drawing and lets each participant know who they have. Site users can also send anonymous notes to others in the group and create wish lists.
Retailers like Best Buy are also getting into the game…
“You have the ability to send requests to your friends on facebook. Then you get to enter what you enjoy doing so you get a good idea of what to give you for secret Santa,“ said Spartanburg Best Buy employee Karvela Stevens.
Here’s a list of other Secret Santa Sites:
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