White elephant generator

A white elephant gift exchange (also called a Yankee swap or Dirty Santa) is a party game where nobody draws names. Everyone brings one wrapped gift up to an agreed price, the gifts go into a pile, and players take turns in a random order.

On your turn you either open a new gift from the pile or steal an opened gift from someone else. If your gift is stolen, you go right away: open a new one or steal from someone else. The fun is that good gifts change hands several times, and nobody knows what they're taking home until the end.

It works well at office parties, with friends and in big families, especially when not everyone knows each other, because nobody has to shop for a specific person. If you'd rather have private matches, use the Secret Santa generator or the gift exchange name draw.

Every group has its own version of white elephant. Set yours here and the game tracker allows or blocks steals to match:

• Frozen after N steals. By default, a gift is frozen after its 3rd steal and stays with whoever has it. That stops one gift from circling the room all night. Choose "never" to turn freezing off.
• No immediate steal-backs. If a gift is taken from you, you can't take that same gift right back.
• One steal per gift per turn. A gift can only be stolen once in a turn, so steal chains don't go on forever.
• Final swap. The first player can only open on their turn, so at the end they get one last chance to swap for any gift that isn't frozen.

The page turns your settings into a plain rules list you can copy into the invite or the group chat.

Once the order is drawn, the big display always shows whose turn it is and which turn you're on. If they open a new gift, you can type what was inside (optional), and play moves to the next person. If they steal, just click the gift: the page moves it to the new owner, adds to its steal count, and makes the person who lost it the active player.

Each gift shows who has it, how many times it has been stolen and whether it's frozen (❄️) or can't be stolen back right now. Gifts that can't be stolen can't be clicked, so there's nothing to argue about.

If someone clicks the wrong thing, Undo steps back one move. The log records every open and steal, and at the end you can copy a list of who took home what.

• Set a price limit. An agreed amount, like $20 or $25, keeps things fair for everyone.
• Mix funny and useful. The best games have gifts worth stealing: a good tumbler, a board game or a gift card will change hands for sure.
• Wrap to disguise. A box that gives nothing away is part of the fun.
• Group size. 6 to 20 players works best. For bigger groups, freeze gifts after 2 steals or the game runs long.
• Put it on the TV. Cast the tracker to a TV or projector so everyone can see whose turn it is and which gifts are frozen.

The order is drawn with cryptographic randomness, and the game is saved only in this browser.