The Surprising History of Secret Santa

Gifts are a great way to a person's heart in the holiday season, and a popular way to exchange gifts is to play Secret Santa. Giving your classmates and friends an entertaining, traditional game to play is the best reason to throw a party. But have you ever sat down and wondered where Secret Santa comes from?

Everyone knows how to play: each player is assigned a person's name and has to anonymously buy them a gift, and they have to guess who bought them the gift after opening it. The  game got its name because the person receiving the gift has no idea who their “Secret Santa” is. 

So here's how it started. In 1979 an American entrepreneur by the name of Larry Dean Stewart made it a practice to anonymously donate 100 dollar bills to the people in Kansas for twenty-five years. He also donated 25,000 dollars to New Yorkers after the 9/11 attacks. He only came out as the “Secret Santa” in 2006. 

While we do secret santa as a gift exchange, in many other countries the traditions are different. For instance, in Scandinavia it is called “Julklapp” and  involves leaving a present on a person's front step, knocking on their door, and running away. 
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All of these traditions have the common theme that a person brings gifts to another person, connecting them all in one way or another, just as the holiday season connects us all.

~Haley Welker- ​Staff Writer