Macquarie Dictionary Blog

Unwrap our festive Word of the Week: Secret Santa

Aussie Word of the Week

'tis the season for holiday slang. This week's Word of the Week is Secret Santa. Taking place in offices and homes across the nation, Secret Santa is a ritual by which a group of people exchange gifts at Christmas, each person giving a present to one other randomly selected member of the group, the gifts being limited to a certain price.

Also known as Kris Kringle, as in I don't know what to get Sharon for a Kris Kringle present, this traditional Christmas game is played with different rules from group to group. In most versions, you draw a name from a hat and buy a gift for one person only. In another version, you bring a – usually humourous – gift which goes in a big pile of presents. You then draw a number and pick presents in numerical order. Everyone except the person who goes first is allowed to steal a present from another, but no single present can be "stolen" more than once. Getting the good gift requires expert timing and a touch of bastardry.

Which version of Secret Santa or Kris Kringle do you play?

Each week, we have a look at a slang word from Australian English. You can see other Aussie Word of the Week posts from the Macquarie Dictionary here.