How to Set up a Dirty Santa Gift Exchange
- 1). Invite a group of friends to your party. You'll need to have at least a group of 10 guests. The ideal number is between 10 and 15 guests; the maximum number of guests should be 20.
- 2). Ask each guest to bring a wrapped gift. As the host, you should set a price range that each gift should fall within. To keep the gifts relatively even in value, this range should have no more than a $15 difference between the high and the low price.
- 3). Direct each guest to place their gift on the gift table as they arrive. Names should not be written on the gifts, so that there is no indication of who brought the gift.
- 4). Write each guest's name on a piece of paper. Fold this piece of paper up and place it in a hat. Make a separate list of names as each guest gives you their piece of paper.
- 5). Announce the first player's name on the list. He then can choose any gift on the gift table and open it. That is all this first person can do, but he also will have a turn after the final person on the list to compensate for having no options in the gifts he gets to see before choosing one.
- 6). Continue going down the list, allowing guests to take their turn. The second and each subsequent guest will have an option: they can either steal a gift that has already been opened, or open a new gift from the gift table. If a guest has a gift stolen from her, she then has the same option to either open a new gift or steal a gift someone else has already opened. The most number of steals there can be in a round (a round starts with the next person on the list) is three. If a player is the third player to have her gift stolen in a round, she must open a new gift instead of stealing.
- 7). Continue going through the list, giving each person the opportunity to open a new gift or steal a gift to start the round. The player that started the first round is allowed to start the final round.
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