Traditionally, every person that plans to participate brings a wrapped gift and places it under the tree, careful not to reveal what his / her gift wrapping looks like (My family usually spends about $20 -$25). Before the game officially begins, we have someone count the amount of people who have brought a gift. Then, we write each individual number on a small piece of paper. These strips of paper are used to determine the order because everyone draws a number out of a hat, bowl or whatever is lying around the house (We're really formal, can't ya tell?). Anyway, we always let the oldest person draw first and continue from oldest to youngest. The person that draws the number 1 out of the hat, will start AND finish the game. (This is the number you are shooting for...by the way.)
Number 2 can choose the previous gift selected by #1 or select a gift from underneath the tree, and unwrap it for all to see.
Number 3 can choose any of the gifts that have been unwrapped OR select one from underneath the tree, and unwrap it for all to see.
I think you catch my drift... you will continue this until everyone has a gift.
You will continue this until everyone has either swapped, stolen or chosen a gift (however you wanna put it). Once everyone is finished, Number 1 gets to look at all the gifts and select if he or she wants to keep what they have or trade with someone else. My family always limits the amount of times a gift can be swapped / stolen. Two times is our limit. Once the gift has been swapped twice, it's off limits... not even #1 can trade it for another gift.Dirty Santa is just good, clean, fun... filled with a little spice! (wink, wink...ha!) This is a great idea for family parties, work parties and can even be used in the classroom, but you may want to tweak it a bit for larger groups. Due to time constraints, I have made a few changes to the traditional game so that all of my students can play without fear of running out of time.
Large Group Dirty Santa - Since there are over 30 students in this class, it's almost impossible to play dirty santa and eat in a 55 minute class period, so this year I changed it up a bit.
I asked the students to bring a wrapped, $10 gift to class. Once we ate and enjoyed some yummy treats, I asked them to form a big circle with their chairs, sit in a chair within the circle, and place their gift underneath the chair in which they sat. Once everyone was settled and gifts were placed, I asked the students to switch chairs for various reasons. After about 10 or so requests, all students were seated in a different chair.
:For example...
If you are wearing green, switch chairs.
If you play football, switch chairs.
If you have a birthday in June, switch chairs.
If you are in 7th grade, switch chairs.
And so on and so forth...
Once they reached their final destination, I asked everyone to open their gifts at once. Once the presents were opened, I asked each student to show his or her gift, and the student responsible for bringing that gift was asked to raise his or her hand. That way, each student could see what others received and say thanks for their gift. The kids really loved it and they were so much fun to watch (That's hard come by in a classroom of 12 and 13 year old students, just sayin')!!
Next year (God willing), I plan to make a few more tweaks to the game. Trial and error, right? Anyway, before the game begins, I will have each student draw for a "Dirty Santa" slip. If they get the slip, they must not show it to others or tell anyone. I will include 5 of these in the hat. The slips are a great twist because the person who possesses the slip is granted the power to trade / steal from his or her neighbor sitting to the left or right of them. I am also going to add a song to the mix. Once the song is over, students will unwrap their gifts and the students who drew the "Dirty Santa" slips will then be able to work their magic. Just for some added fun.
Merry Christmas, Y'all.
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