Guide · Kris Kringle

Kris Kringle generator: drawing names the Australian way

Kris Kringle is what most of Australia and New Zealand calls Secret Santa, and the draw works exactly the same way. This guide covers the name, the spend limits people set, and how an office that no longer shares a room can draw names without a hat and with each person seeing only the name they drew.

Other namesSecret Santa, Chris Kindle Typical cap$10–$30 Draw needsno hat, no room

Paste the names in, and each person gets a link that shows only who they drew, with no account, no email addresses and nothing to install.

Draw the names

The word, and why Australians use it for the event

Kris Kringle is an anglicisation of Christkindl, the Christ Child, who in German and Austrian tradition brought the presents. German-speaking settlers carried the word into English-speaking countries, where over a century or so it became another name for Santa Claus. Australian usage then did something the other English-speaking countries did not: it attached the name to the event. In Australia and New Zealand a Kris Kringle is the draw and the exchange itself, which is why "we're doing a Kris Kringle this year" is an ordinary sentence in Melbourne and a confusing one in Manchester.

You will see it spelled Chris Kindle and Kriss Kringle too, and both are the same thing. The spelling changes nothing about the draw: one name per person, kept secret, and one gift on the agreed day. Everything on this site about Secret Santa applies as written, including the exclusion rules, the drop-out repair and the arguments about whether a gift can be homemade.

Set the limit before you draw, and say what kind of limit it is

Australian workplaces usually land between $10 and $30. The number matters less than two sentences most announcements leave out. First: is it a cap or a target? A cap says "no more than this" and lets people spend five dollars without looking cheap. A target says "about this" and obliges everyone to hit it. Groups often announce one and mean the other, and the people who feel it are the ones for whom thirty dollars is a real amount of money.

Second: do homemade and second-hand gifts count? Saying yes, in advance and without ceremony, changes who feels able to take part. It takes one line in the announcement and affects participation more than the limit does. If your group has a tradition of terrible gifts on purpose (a Bad Santa, in the Australian phrasing), say that too, because the same object is a joke in one group and an insult in another, and nobody can tell which room they are in from the invitation alone.

Decide the date and the handover at the same time. A draw with no exchange date is how a Kris Kringle fizzles out in the second week of December, and a group that has already bought gifts is much harder to reschedule than one that has not.

Drawing the names when the office is not a room

The hat works when everyone is standing in the same place. Once a group is spread across sites, time zones, or a couple of days off, the hat gets replaced by one of three things: a spreadsheet, a round of direct messages, or a person who "just sorts it out". All three have the same flaw: somebody ends up holding the whole map. That person then has to remember not to react when two colleagues discuss what they bought, for a month, which is a lot to ask of a volunteer.

The alternative is a generator that makes one link per participant. Paste the list in, and it works out an assignment in which nobody draws themselves. Each person's link opens to the name they drew and nothing about anyone else's assignment, and you hand the links out through whatever channel your group already uses. There is no sign-up and no email collection, so a late joiner is added by redrawing before you hand the links out, with no account to chase.

If your group has couples, housemates, or a pair who exchange separately, set those exclusions before drawing, so there is nothing to fix afterwards. Exclusions can make a draw impossible: four people in one household, in a group of six, leaves no valid assignment at all, and it is better to find that out at the draw than after the links have gone out. The exclusion rules guide shows how quickly the number of valid draws falls as you add constraints.

When someone drops out

The reflex is to redraw the whole group, and that costs you twice: every link already handed out stops matching, and reissuing them all announces to everyone that something changed. The generator can make a smaller repair, as long as the tab you drew in is still open and has not been reloaded. The person who drew the leaver takes the leaver's recipient, every other pairing stays as it was, and exactly one link is re-sealed.

The repair shows the organiser which row changed, revealing who was giving to the person who left, but not that giver’s new recipient. The rest of the draw stays hidden. The drop-outs and redraws guide sets out the whole trade-off, including when a redraw is the right answer.

Frequently asked questions

Is Kris Kringle the same as Secret Santa?

Yes. It is the same gift exchange under a different name. Kris Kringle is the usual term in Australia and New Zealand and is common in Ireland; Secret Santa is the dominant term in Britain and North America. Everything about the mechanics is identical: each person draws one name, keeps it to themselves, and brings one gift. If you have run a Secret Santa you already know how to run a Kris Kringle, and any generator built for one works for the other.

Where does the name Kris Kringle come from?

It is an anglicisation of Christkindl, a German and Austrian term for the Christ Child, who traditionally brought the gifts. German-speaking settlers carried the word into English, where it drifted over time into a name for Santa Claus himself. Australian usage went a step further and gave the name to the event itself, so "having a Kris Kringle" is a sentence that makes sense there and puzzles people elsewhere.

What is a normal Kris Kringle spend limit?

Australian workplaces most often set somewhere between $10 and $30, and the exact number matters less than announcing it early and stating whether it is a cap or a target. A cap invites people to spend less; a target pressures them to spend more. Also decide up front whether homemade and second-hand gifts count, because in a group where money is uneven that single sentence does more for participation than the limit itself.

How do you draw Kris Kringle names when nobody is in the same room?

Use a draw that produces one link per person: each participant opens only their own and sees only the name they drew. A hat needs a room, and passing a list around a group chat means the organiser sees every pairing. The generator on this site does it this way. You paste in the names, it computes an assignment where nobody draws themselves, and it gives you a link to hand to each person privately. Nothing is emailed and no account is created; you distribute the links however your group already talks.

What happens if someone pulls out after the draw?

Redrawing invalidates everyone’s links. For a single departure, the generator can repair the existing draw while the draw tab is open: the person who drew the leaver is reassigned, and only that one pairing changes. The page tells the organiser what this discloses. They see which row changed, so they learn who was giving to the leaver, but they do not see the new pairing. That one disclosed pairing is the price of not redrawing everyone. The drop-outs guide walks through the trade-off in full.