★★★★Laura K.
Good, and the price cap flag saved one person from overspending by a mile. I would have liked a column for shipping deadlines per country, so I added one — easy enough to do.
The Remote Secret Santa Kit
It earns its place when people are in more than three regions, parcels have to cross a border, and there is a call at the end.
$9
- Excel and Google Sheets both open it — .xlsx included
- Nothing to install, nothing to subscribe to
- Opens on your phone
- Instant download after payment
- 14-day refund, no questions
One shared posting deadline is wrong for almost everybody. This draws the names, gives every giver their own deadline based on where their person actually lives, and tells you what time the call lands in Bengaluru.
A hat and ten slips of paper does not scale
In one office a Secret Santa takes four minutes. Spread the same team across eight time zones and it becomes three separate logistics problems, and each one has a person who ends up quietly resenting it. The draw has to avoid couples and desk partners. The deadlines cannot be one date, because a parcel from Lisbon to Sydney in December needs three weeks and a parcel across Denver needs five days. And somebody always works out the call time wrong — it is always the same person, and they always end up joining at four in the morning. None of that is hard. It is just three calculations nobody wants to do by hand in the second week of November.
Three calculations, done for you
A ring, not a lottery. Everyone gives once, receives once, and nobody can draw themselves. Exclusions are checked and counted. Every giver gets one date, worked out from their person's region plus your postal buffer. Amber at five days, red once it has gone. Your 3pm converted into everyone's local clock, with a flag on anyone for whom it lands on a different day.
Reshuffle without ever losing a draw
The draw runs off a single number you type, called the seed. Change it and the whole draw redraws instantly. Type the same number again and the identical draw comes back. So if a couple end up with each other, you change the seed and try again — and if you preferred the draw two shuffles ago, you can have it back. The Setup tab counts how many pairings break a rule. Keep typing until it reads zero, then leave it alone. No macros. No add-ons. No permissions to grant.
What's inside
- Start Here
- The order to do things in, and one honest paragraph about what a spreadsheet cannot hide from its owner.
- Setup
- Group name, budget cap, reveal date and time, your own zone, postal buffer, and the draw seed. Plus a live count of how many pairings break a rule.
- Participants
- Up to 30 people. Name, email, city, region, wishlist link, and a Must not draw column for couples and repeat pairings.
- Zones
- Eighteen regions with posting times and clock offsets, all editable. Change one and every deadline recalculates.
- The Draw
- Who gives to whom, that person's region and wishlist, a personal post-by date, days remaining, and the rule check. One row per person, ready to copy into a message.
- Reveal Day
- Everyone's local start time with a next-day flag, plus a timed run of show that rebuilds itself when you change the minutes. Prints on one page.
How it works
- 1PayCard only. No account, no password, no address. Two fields and a payment box.
- 2DownloadThe link appears on screen straight away and lands in your inbox at the same time. It does not expire.
- 3Open itDouble-click for Excel, or File → Import → Replace spreadsheet for Google Sheets. Every formula carries over.
Specifications
- Formats
- Excel (.xlsx), Google Sheets (.xlsx) and a printable PDF guide
- Tabs
- 6
- Works in
- Excel, Google Sheets, Numbers, LibreOffice
- Opens on
- Desktop and phone
- Delivery
- Instant download, plus an emailed link that does not expire
Who this is not for
If everyone works in the same building, you do not need this. Use a hat. It is faster and more fun.
If you are playing and you organise it, you will see the draw. No spreadsheet can hide it from the person who owns the file. Either accept that and say nothing, or hand it to someone who is not playing. We would rather say that here than let you find out after you have paid.
It earns its place when people are in more than three regions, parcels have to cross a border, and there is a call at the end.
Before you buy
Do I need to pay for Google Sheets?
No. Google Sheets is free with any Google account. If you would rather use Excel, that file is in the same download.
Can it hide the draw from me?
No, and neither can anything else you own the file for. Hand it to a non-player if that matters to your group. We would rather be straight about this.
The posting days look wrong for my carrier.
Change them. The Zones tab is editable and every deadline recalculates. The defaults assume standard post in December, not express.
Somebody lives somewhere that is not on the list.
Type over the closest zone and set its posting days and clock offset yourself. There are eighteen rows and you will not use all of them.
What about different currencies?
Set one cap in one currency and say which currency in your invite. Converting it per person creates more arguments than it solves.
Can people join after the draw?
Add them and the ring redraws around them. Do it before you send the rows out, or you will have to tell some people twice.
What if it does not work for me?
Email us within 14 days and we refund it. You keep the file. We would rather have the feedback than the nine dollars.
Reviews
★★★★★Chris
The draw genuinely works without you seeing the pairings, which I was sceptical about. The wishlist column stopped the usual round of desk plants.
★★★★★Amanda T.
I run this for a team of 28 across four time zones and I have organised it in a group chat for three years. This took an afternoon of chasing down to about twenty minutes. The progress tracker did it — I could see who had not bought yet without asking everyone.
All ten holiday planners — $39
The gift budget, the Thanksgiving timeline, the blended-family gift tracker, the remote Secret Santa kit, the cookie swap planner, the two-families travel budget, the fifty-card Christmas list, the mixed-diet menu planner, the toddler activity calendar, and the ninety-day January debt reset. Bought separately they are $90.
Get all ten — $39
