What is Kris Kringle, Secret Santa, Bad Santa & White Elephant in Australia?

Make Christmas fun this year with a Kris Kringle, Secret Santa, Bad Santa or White Elephant gift exchanges with friends, family, and work colleagues.

So what is the difference between a Kris Kringle, Secret Santa, Bad Santa & White Elephant Christmas Gift exchange in Australia? 

It seems there are many different versions, but from all our research over the years here is our take on them.  The main difference between Secret Santa (Kris Kringle) and White Elephant (Bad Santa) is that Secret Santa gifts are purchased for a specific person whereas White Elephant is for anyone from the group, and then each person tries to get the gift they want most by picking from a pile or stealing from others.

What is Secret Santa and Kris Kringle Gift Exchange?

Kris Kringle or Secret Santa in Australia is when participants draw names from a hat or you can use an app to randomly select a recipient. Each person then secretly buys a gift for that person.  Often you will write the name of the recipient on the gift but from Kris Kringle or Secret Santa so they don’t know who it was from.

To make it a little more fun on the day,  each person takes a turn to open their gift and then they can try to guess their Secret Santa or Kris Kringle.

What is White Elephant or Bad Santa Gift Exchange?

White Elephant or Bad Santa (Dirty Santa) Gift Giving in Australia is a little different, because you don’t know who you are buying the gift for.  There will be a budget given for the gift and the occasion can even have a theme attached but not compulsory. For example, the gift must start with the letter B or must be eco-friendly etc.

White elephant gifts can be practical, fun or even outrageous. The gifts are wrapped and placed together, each person is given a number from 1 to the total number of guests. Once the order is determined they will take turns starting at number 1. The first person selects and opens a wrapped gift and shows the room what they have received.  The next person can steal someone’s gift that has already been unwrapped or take a new gift from the pile. If your gift is stolen, you can unwrap a new gift from the pile. 

Alternatively, you can allow the person who gets their gift stolen to either choose a new gift or steal a gift from someone else as well. But you are not allowed to steal back your stolen present immediately. Remember if you choose to allow people to steal once stolen from the game may go for a lot longer, so only allow maximum of three swaps in one turn.

When everybody has had their turn, the first person is given the chance to decide if they want to keep or swap the gift they are holding. If they decide to keep the gift they have, then the White Elephant game is over. But if they steal a gift, the game goes on until someone declines to steal. 

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