White Elephant Generator

A party game where everyone brings one wrapped gift and people take turns, in a random order, either unwrapping a gift from the pile or stealing one somebody has already opened. Someone who is robbed picks again straight away. It goes by several names — Yankee Swap and Dirty Santa are the most common — and house rules differ from group to group, which is why this page lets you set them.

There is no official rulebook, but a widely used set is what the Classic preset uses: players go in number order; on your turn you open a gift or steal an opened one; if yours is stolen you open or steal again, but you can’t take back the gift that was just taken from you; a gift is frozen after its third steal and stays with whoever took it; and once every gift is open, player 1 — who had nothing to steal at the start — may swap their gift for any unfrozen one.

Each gift card on the game table shows one dot per allowed steal and fills a dot every time the gift changes hands by stealing. When the dots are full — after the third steal in the Classic rules — the card turns blue, says Frozen, and its Steal button disappears, so the person holding it keeps it. Choose 1 to 5 steals, or Never for no freeze at all. The final swap also counts as a steal of the gift player 1 takes.

If Ben steals the candle from Anna, Anna can’t take the candle straight back on the same move — she has to open a new gift or steal a different one. On a later turn she is free to go after the candle again (unless it has frozen). Without this rule two people can pass the same gift back and forth for a long time, so it is on in every preset; untick it if your group plays without it.

With a big group and a popular gift, one turn can turn into a long chain of steals. Steals per turn caps that chain: once the limit is reached, whoever is left without a gift must open one from the pile, and the next numbered turn starts. The Quick preset allows two steals per turn and the Gentle preset one; the Classic preset has no cap.

The page shuffles the names with your browser’s cryptographic random number generator (crypto.getRandomValues) using a Fisher–Yates shuffle, so every order is equally likely. Draw again as often as you like before the party; the order counts from the moment you start the game table. If you prefer a physical draw, tick No names and print plain numbered slips instead.

One fold-over slip per player, twelve to an A4 or US Letter page: the game’s name on the outside and a large number inside, plus the player’s name if you drew the order here and left Print each name on its slip ticked. The last page lists the turn order (or blank lines to write names next to the numbers) and every rule you chose in plain sentences, ready for the middle of the table.

No. The timer restarts on every move and counts down the seconds you picked; when it reaches zero it turns amber, says Time’s up and plays a short chime generated in your browser (untick Chime to silence it). What happens then — a gentle hurry-up or a forced open — is for the group to decide.

Press Undo to take back the last move — as many moves as you need. A gift can be renamed at any time by tapping its name, which is handy once people see what they unwrapped. The game is saved in this browser after every move, so reloading the page or closing the tab by accident doesn’t lose it.

No. Names, rules and the game in progress are stored only in this browser’s local storage on your device, and the PDF is built in your browser. Nothing is sent to a server, and there is no account to create. Clear the site’s data or use Back to setup and start a new game to replace what is saved.