Top 7 Free Sites to Draw Gifts or Organize a Secret Santa

The end-of-year celebrations are a particularly important time for many French people. And it is always an opportunity to exchange gifts with family, friends or even colleagues.

It has also become quite common in offices to organize Secret Santa ! Secret Santa or Canadian Christmas is a tradition in which a group of people randomly give each other gifts. A draw determines the recipient of each gift. However, the recipient does not know in advance who will give them a present.

If you've ever hosted a Secret Santa, you know how the draws can be a headache. So to make your life easier, here are 7 free sites that will allow you to draw gifts within a group or simply organize a Secret Santa.

10 steps to a successful Secret Santa

Noëloscope – The free Secret Santa

Christmasoscope is a completely free and ad-free site that will allow you to easily organize a Secret Santa between colleagues or family. All you have to do is create your event, indicate a budget per gift, add participants… and once everyone has joined the Noëloscope, you just have to start the Secret Santa. An email will then be sent to each participant to tell them who to give a gift to.

Advantages/disadvantages:

• Free and ad-free
• Very easy to use, ideal for a hassle-free experience
• An admin view to manage participants
• Few features if you want to customize your Secret Santa

Get to Christmasoscope

tirokdo – online gift draw

tirokdo is a site that will allow you to easily organize your online draw. An organizer creates the event and invites all the participants. Everyone then discovers who they should give a gift to and the party can begin. The organizer has an online space to manage the event and possibly follow up with the participants. He can also make sure that everyone has completed their draw.

Advantages/disadvantages:

• 3 drawing modes (secret until the day of the event, revealed to everyone during the drawing, completely secret : you only know on the day to whom you are giving the gift) => the draw can be secret or not
• Participants are informed by email
• tailor-made rules for each participant: allows you to ensure, for example, that a couple does not give each other gifts...
• possibility to share a wish list with the person who has to give you a gift
• exchanges of secret messages drawn by lot
• an online space to manage your event
• import of participants via a CSV file
• a little more complicated than other sites (but more complete)

Get to tirokdo

Who do I offer to?

As its name suggests, the purpose of J'offre à qui is to help you determine who is giving a gift to whom! And the site focuses on simplicity and wants to make your life easier! Indeed, once the draw list is generated, you should send it to yourself by email so as not to lose track of it, because you will not be able to return to it. But as a result, this site does not require the creation of any user account.

Advantages/disadvantages:

• very simple management of the gift draw
• no need to create a user account
• no possibility to create exclusion rules in the draw
• the draw is not secret
• no invitations sent to participants
• the event is not saved online

Get to Who do I offer to?

Draw Names

Halfway between the list manager Gift and drawing tool, Draw Names not only allows you to draw lots, but also helps you find gift ideas that you can share. Gift ideas come from Amazon.

Particularly comprehensive, Draw Names will allow you to enter participants, but also to manage exclusions and share your draw.

Advantages/disadvantages:

• sending invitations by email to participants
• organizer space to manage the group and the event
• possibility to ask anonymous questions to the person you drew
• creating a wish list to give ideas to the person who drew you
• The results are kept secret, everyone only knows the name they drew.
• possibility of creating prints with 2 names (2 gifts to offer)
• the organizer can see the draw list on the day of the event
• can serve as a wish list… without a draw

Get to Draw Names

Gift Draw

Gift Draw is relatively similar in terms of draw features with tirokdo and Draw Names. An organizer will create an account and enter all the participants who will then be informed by email of the person to whom they should give a gift. In case of problem (mail lost or gone to spam), the organizer can resend an email to the participant. This site also allows to add exclusion rules.

Advantages/disadvantages of Gift Draw:

• the draw is secret
• a fairly easy to use site
• sending invitations by email to participants
• organizer space to manage the group and the event
• ability to create exclusion rules
• Groups can be reused from one year to the next

Get to Gift Draw

Secret Santa Organizer – Secret Santa online draw

Quite similar to other sites, Secret Santa Organizer has the merit of having a simplified event creation space in which the first participant entered will be the organizer and the latter will receive an email with a link allowing him to manage the event. After the draw, each participant will also receive an email with a link allowing him to access a space in which he can add a wish list and find out who he should give a gift to. The organizer has the possibility of resending an email to a participant who has lost it, but can also access all the results of the draw if necessary.

Pros/Cons of Secret Santa Organizer:

• secret draw
• easy to use site
• organizer space to manage the group and the event, but with relatively few options
• sending invitations by email to participants
• ability to add wishlist
• import of participants via a CSV file
• not possible to create draw exclusions

Get to Secret Santa Organizer

Secret-Santa.fr quite simply… Secret Santa draw

Secret-Santa.fr offers a fairly basic service, but it has the advantage of not requiring an email address. Enter the name of the organizer, that of the participants and the tool will draw lots to determine who offers to whom. No real secret then… but a very very easy tool to use.

In addition to managing the entire organization of a Secret Santa, Secret-Santa.fr has a gift idea generator for anyone lacking inspiration.

Advantages/disadvantages:

• no email address needed to generate a draw
• very easy to use (even too easy)
• the site has a gift idea generator
• no invitation sent to participants
• the gift draw is not secret
• no event save

Get to Secret-Santa.fr

And there you have it, the end-of-year holidays rhyme with fun times and gift exchanges. Secret Santa is this great tradition that adds a bit of mystery and fun, whether at the office or with friends. Fortunately, with online tools like tirokdo, J'offre à qui, Draw Names, Tirage Cadeau, Secret Santa Organizer and Secret-Santa.fr, organizing all of this becomes child's play. Each site has its little extras, whether you're looking for something simple, personalized or secret. Basically, they are there to make our lives easier and let us fully enjoy the festive atmosphere. It's an opportunity to get closer to our colleagues, friends and family, while having fun guessing who gave what gift. In short, it's the spirit of Christmas with a modern and friendly touch!

And as a side note, if you are looking for a good gift list manager, take a look at Boonjy !

And what about Canadian Christmas in all of this?

If you're looking for a more fun (or chaotic) version, try the Canadian christmas Everyone brings a gift at random, and then the packages are drawn, exchanged, or even stolen between participants! At your own risk and with plenty of laughs…