How we check Santa Pairs
Santa Pairs makes a random draw in which everyone gives to exactly one person, everyone receives from exactly one person, nobody draws themselves, and every rule you add (for example that a couple must not draw each other) is respected. This is a standard matching problem. Before it picks anyone, it checks that a valid draw exists, and if none does it explains why in plain words.
How the randomness works
The draw uses your browser’s secure random number generator, with a step that removes the small bias a simple remainder would add. Nothing is sent to a server, nothing is saved, and reloading the page erases the draw.
What is a fact and what is a custom
The mathematics on this site (for example that a purely random assignment leaves nobody with their own name only about 37 percent of the time, even for groups as small as four) comes from published references and is easy to check. Customs such as the regional names for the game and the house rules of white elephant vary from place to place, so we describe them as customs and say that your group can choose its own.
What we do not do
We do not email anyone, we do not create accounts, and we do not keep a record of any draw. That is also why we cannot recover a draw for you: if you close the page, the draw is gone.
Sources
- Wikipedia: Secret Santa: regional names for the game, including Kris Kringle (Canada and Australia), Kris Kindle (Ireland), Wichteln (Austria and Germany) and Amigo Secreto (Spain, Portugal and Latin America).
- Mental Floss: rules and origins of 6 gift exchanges: white elephant, Yankee swap and Dirty Santa are stealing games unlike Secret Santa, and the origin stories, including the King of Siam tale, cannot be verified.
- Wikipedia: Derangement: the mathematics of draws in which nobody gets their own name.
- Wolfram MathWorld: Derangement: the chance that a random shuffle has no fixed point is about 1 in e, very close even for four items, and the subfactorial formula.
- OEIS A000166: number of derangements: the counts of derangements for small groups: 1, 0, 1, 2, 9, 44, 265 for 0 to 6 names.
Review schedule
Last reviewed 27 October 2026. We aim to review every page at least once a year, and to correct a mistake as soon as we hear about it.
What we do not do
We do not collect what you type, we do not make claims we cannot source, and we say plainly when a figure is a rule of thumb rather than a measurement.