Dirty Santa: Charity Edition
As i’ve grown older, the excitement of Christmas has all but waned for me. I buy everything I need, and i’m increasingly trying to become less material. Compounding this is the fact that people I don’t see very often tend give undesireable gifts, despite their best intentions.
Unsurprisingly the pragmatist in me is a huge fan of Kris Kringle, which simplifies the whole process and makes it more fun too. We normally use an online tool like Draw Names to manage gifts and it’s great; but that’s not why i’m here…
It’s the off-shoot to Kris Kringle - Dirty Santa that is the true star. We’d often do a round of this on group holidays simply because it’s fun. Like Kris Kringle, you buy one gift and receive one gift, but unlike Kris Kringle, there isn’t a specific recipient. Instead, anyone can receive any gift determined by the order they’re opened in, or who they’re stolen from. You can read the full rules here.
At the end of 2019, the mega bushfires were still tearing across the eastern coastal areas of Australia and the community response was immense. Charity events and support initiatives popped up at an impressive rate and it inspired me to create a charity version of Dirt Santa for an upcoming extended family Christmas.
How To Play Dirty Santa: Charity Edition
It’s the same base game, but with a charitable twist. Here’s how it works:
Set a gift limit and optionally, a theme (we normally go with $20).
Modifier: Gifts must be second hand, or come from charitable source (ideally a related appeal, community program, or cause etc) .
Everyone that brings a gift gets to play.
Numbers are drawn from a hat to determine the order that presents are opened.
The first drawn number chooses any present and opens it.
Everyone takes their turn in the order of their drawn number.
On your turn, you can take an unopened gift from the pile or your can steal one that someone has already opened, however, to steal a gift you must pay the ‘stealing tax’ to the person you steal from which kept separate until the end (we set it at $2).
If you’re stolen from, you get to pick a new gift. You can take an unopened gift from the pile, or you can steal again at a cost (but you can’t steal from the person that just stole from you).
You can steal multiple times, paying each time.
If you’re serious about raising money, make the cost for every subsequent steal increase ($2, $3, $4 etc).
It’s over when all the presents have been opened.
Each person tallies up their ‘stealing tax’ and it gets donated to the chosen charity, group, cause etc.
If you’ve allowed multiple recipients to choose from, the recipient is decided by the ‘victim’ of Dirty Santa, which is whoever has received the most ‘stealing tax’ because they’ve been stolen from the most! They can choose where the money goes or split it up between several - ultimately it’s up to them.
Tips
Prepare & agree on a list of charities that you want to donate to beforehand - this will make the game smoother and allow you to do the vetting if you’re doing step 11.
Consider putting a cap on the amount of steals or you could be in a for a long game - you can do this with a maximum steal limit, or you could make the stealing tax increase like crazy after a certain number of steals.
TL;DR
(or what’s different from Dirty Santa)
When you steal a present you have to make a donation (stealing tax).
You can steal many times in the game encouraging more donations.
Make the donation cost increase each time if you really want to compete for karma.
Have fun!
If you tried this out i’d love to hear your thoughts - let me know via comments or on the contact page.
