About DearSanta

Would you like to write the letter to Santa together with your child, and see that excitement on their face when you send it?

And have that same wish list reach the grandparents, aunts, uncles and godparents, wherever they are, so no one repeats a gift, wastes their money buying just anything, or ends up with no idea what to get?

Have you ever ended up organising the office secret santa and found yourself sending the same message to ten different people over two weeks?

Did you know the draw was supposed to be secret, only for the whole group to know by the second day?

And worst of all: you had no idea what to buy the person you got, but didn't want to look bad either?

Why the letter to Santa

"Yes, Grandma, I asked for a pedal car, green and big, so I can ride it and play with the other kids."

My daughter was two, and up to that point she barely spoke. She said it with her arms thrown open as wide as they'd go, one afternoon on December 24th. Her grandmother had asked her, half-joking, whether she'd asked Santa for anything. I had no idea that sentence would end up turning into an app.

I dropped what I was doing and went out to search half the city for that car. At the last shop I tried, there was one left. Green, just like she'd asked. I still can't forget her face the next day.

As a father of three, I know how easy it is to miss what your kids actually want, to repeat a gift, or to have the one thing that would have meant the most be the one thing missing. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised that problem isn't just mine as a parent: if anything, it's even harder for anyone who doesn't see the kids every day.

Why the secret santa

I've taken part in plenty of secret santas over the years, and almost all of them go the same way: someone has to chase people to sign up, the draw that's supposed to be secret ends up known to everyone, and in the end you buy something out of obligation without really knowing much about the person you got. Sometimes it doesn't even happen: it fizzles out in the group chat somewhere between "are we doing it this year?" and the usual silence.

When something feels tedious to me, my instinct is to automate it. So that's what I did with the logistics: invitations, sign-up, reminders, a draw that respects exclusions. But I wanted to add something more: private messages between the giver and the receiver, a genuine excuse to talk to the person you were matched with, beyond the gift itself. An online secret santa draw shouldn't just be a random name generator; it can be the reason you ask a coworker what they like doing on weekends, something you might never have asked without that excuse.

For grandparents, aunts, uncles and godparents

Finding the "right" gift creates anxiety even for parents themselves, who see their kids every day and know their tastes by heart. Now imagine being the grandparent who lives half an hour away (or on the other side of the world, like part of my own family is for me) and having to guess what a seven-year-old grandchild likes when their tastes change every couple of months. Or being the aunt with no kids of her own who wants to get it right, but has no idea whether kids that age still play with dolls or only want a games console now. Or the godfather who asks "what are they into these days?" and gets a "not sure, all sorts of things" that doesn't help at all.

That uncertainty isn't a minor detail: it's the reason so many Christmas gifts end up generic, repeated, or simply wrong. DearSanta's letter to Santa exists to close that distance. Your child writes their Christmas wish list, you share it with whoever you choose, and each person sees exactly what they want. And the moment someone picks a gift from the list, it disappears for everyone else, so no one duplicates the effort or the expense.

It's not just an online Christmas wish list for kids: it's a way for everyone who loves your child to show it with something that actually excites them.

A closing word

I built this app myself: a software engineer, a teacher before that, father of three, and someone who's almost always got some project on the go (my eldest daughter wrote her first Christmas story at age 10, so maybe it runs in the family). I made it thinking about my own kids, my own office secret santas, that phone call with my mum where she asked me what to get my daughter and I had no idea either.

If it saves you a single evening of wondering "what do I get them?", or gives a kid that look of pure excitement you never forget, then it was worth building.

I truly hope you enjoy it, that you find it useful, and that this year Christmas is a little easier and a little more magical for you and yours.

Merry Christmas!