All right—Secret Santa time at the office! You’ve entered your name in the Secret Santa generator and are ready to see who you’re paired with this year. Will it be your friend in accounting? Your favorite lunch buddy? Or the new woman, who you’d love to get to know better? Oh, the endless exciting possibilities! Oh, wait—you got your boss. Well, might as well quit and find a new job. Okay, so you don’t have to be that dramatic, but…
It all started with DJ D-Nice hosting Instagram Live dance parties weekly. Then GRiZ, an up-and-coming Detroit DJ, and 23 other artists hosted a 24-hour dance and reconnect party online. While that might not be the norm for reconnecting with friends and may or may not be your thing, it’s definitely an exciting way to unite during a difficult time. Regardless, you, your friends, family, and social network deserve to have fun, let loose, and enjoy some laughs together! When…
So, you’re running a gift exchange for your next party. That’s a great idea! Gift exchanges are an incredible way to bring people together, to engage in some light mystery, and to make a great party even better. And here’s the best part: they can be really really really easy. Running a Secret Santa doesn’t have to be complicated. You don’t have to jump through hoops or spend hours wrangling people. With the help of an online generator and these…
“Congratulations! You’re running the office gift exchange!” I recently had the pleasure of telling that to a co-worker as we were planning a remote office party. We’d been working from home for a while, so we decided it would be a cool way to keep everyone together. And even though I was the pro, we decided Jess could take the reins on this one. She turned a bit pale at the thought, but I reassured her that it would be…
Are you planning a party? They can get boring if you don’t have a theme or any games. Have you ever had a Secret Santa gift swap? They’re a lot of fun and a great way to get people into a party mood. Holding a Secret Santa for teens is easy to plan, doesn’t have to mean buying expensive gifts, and can be organized right from your phone. Whether you’re the one planning the party for your friends or if…
Sigh… the excitement of the holidays is now a distant vision like Santa’s sleigh flashing across the starry sky. I’m sure we can all agree that winter may have lost its luster. These days, dashing through the snow may feel more like slogging through the slush. As the fresh vibes of the new year drift into February we feel the love. Lucky for us, we have something special coming our way. An extra day to bring back the sparkle! The…
If there’s one thing I love, it’s variety. If there’s another thing I love, it’s giving and receiving gifts. Oh, and I also love my friends and family and music and parties. Turns out I love a lot of things, and celebrating them all requires that first thing: variety. That’s why I love to do gift exchanges for different occasions. They don’t have to just be during the holidays and they don’t have to all be the same. There are…
I’m friends with a lot of artists and musicians. This isn’t due to any musical or artistic talent on my behalf—I can’t carry a tune to save my life and my drawings look like someone put a paintbrush in the mouth of a particularly hyper dog. Still, many of my friends are in the creative community. So, when we have a Secret Santa party, we try to be cognizant that different people have different budgets. Some people have artist’s budgets;…
My wife and I first started dating in early July. But by Christmas we were already at the “let’s see each other’s family!” stage of things (cue: awwww). When she joined my family’s Secret Santa game and got my cousin Chuck, I was super excited. Chuck is great! Of course, she asked what to me was a surprising question: “Who, exactly, is Chuck?” Yeah, I had forgotten that she didn’t know everyone in my family. But that brings up a…
When I was fresh out of college, a few years ago (ok, more than a few), I had a job at a consulting company. To make things more fun, they had a party committee. One holiday season, they set up a Secret Santa gift exchange and decided to do a theme. Fun, right? Absolutely. They were fun people! But the theme they chose was British TV dramas of the 1980’s. Needless to say, not everyone knew what this theme encapsulated,…
There’s nothing wrong with being odd. For whatever reason, we tend to think “odd” numbers are, well, off. Even numbers are solid and divide easily. They have a graceful symmetry. Odd numbers? They’re weird and quirky. It’s right there in the name! I don’t know about you, though, but I like things being odd. It makes life more interesting. Odd numbers can be like Alice in Wonderland, taking you to weird and fun places. And contrary to popular belief, having…
By now you probably understand that Elfster is a service which helps people stay connected, play a fun game, experience generosity, and bond together in a way that is both entertaining and responsible. Behind the scenes we can see so much inspiring stuff going on. Among you are families and groups with long standing traditions being developed. You have groups that are international, spread all over the globe, that are coming together to share an experience. Some of you have…