Comments on: Secret Santa as a Puzzle

By: Michael J. Swart

Michael J. Swart — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 18:09:34 +0000

Hi Joe,
Wow, as a practical suggestion, “The boy gift/girl gift” rules reduce the average number of picks for five couples from 36.8 to 18.7!
That is a suggestion that would work for my family.

Can’t wait for the article. Cheers.

By: Joe Celko

Joe Celko — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 05:25:09 +0000

I just did an article on Permutations in SQL. It is not published yet.

Think about this approach; a couple gets a prime integer id, (n) and the husband is assigned (+n) and the wife is (-n). Thus a gift pair that totals to zero is illegal. The toal of a permutation should also be zero.

It also makes the “boy gift/girl gift” rules easier, if you play with them (each gender is required to buy gifts for that gender or the other one).

By: Michael J. Swart

Michael J. Swart — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 20:53:40 +0000

I hear you Bob. It can be pretty rough if #12 went out for a smoke with #19 and people insist on waiting for them.
And then you open a gift that’s a paperback, but it turns out to be Dan Brown, and nobody will steal it from you.
Have some more egg nog Cheers.

By: Bob

Bob — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 19:39:14 +0000

Our family does a yankee swap rather than Secret Santa. The only problem with that from my point of view is that the process takes forever with more than 5 people involved.
“who’s got 15, you’re next! 15? 15?”
“Oh! that’s mine, sorry. Let’s see, which one [of the 5 remaining packages] will I pick … this one? Nah … hmmmmm”
“Pick one!!”
By this time, the beer’s all gone, people are getting cranky and wanting to go home … you get the picture.
Plus there’s the fun of getting the crappy gift or worse, your own.

By: Michael J. Swart

Michael J. Swart — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 20:55:04 +0000

@Claire, Good job! I think that there is hope for a method like that. That method has a much better chance of working than signing up at Elfster.com. Maybe I’ll see if my family will be up for that.

By: Cressa

Cressa — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 20:35:57 +0000

Awesome! My family has this problem too.

By: Claire

Claire — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 19:48:22 +0000

As an anagram nut, I'm preferential to joriki's answer. As a practical solution, I'd say:

have a neutral 3rd party assign each participant a color.
each participant will submit a slip in assigned color with his/her name on it to the neutral party, or palm it into a bag, or make everyone look away while he/she puts it into a bag
Given bag method, once all slips are entered, dump contents onto a table.
Have everyone pick. Of course, there is some chance the last man standing will be left with his own color if you have an odd number.

By: Dave S

Dave S — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 17:46:25 +0000

Really fun – but as I recall – It was mostly YOU giving only ME a hard time for picking my name over and over again.