FAQ and help

Here you'll find answers to the most common questions, and everything you can do with each DearSanta product. If you still have a question after reading this, you can always write to us.

Frequently asked questions

Everything you can do

Secret Santa

1. Create your group with a name, registration close date, delivery date, and if you want, a place and a minimum and maximum budget.
2. If you need to, set exclusions before inviting anyone, for example so two people in a couple don't get matched with each other.
3. Invite participants by email. Each one gets a unique, personal, non-transferable link.
4. Each guest enters with their link, signs up, and leaves their gift ideas.
5. You can track each guest's status from your panel: if they haven't opened their link yet, you can resend the invitation. If they opened it but haven't signed up, you can send them a reminder.
6. Two days before registration closes, the app automatically sends a reminder to anyone who still hasn't signed up.
7. If you ever need to add someone else to the group, you can do it from the panel any time before the draw.
8. When the close date arrives, the draw runs itself. You can also force it early by hand from the panel, as long as you already have at least two people signed up. Once it's done, the draw can't be undone.
9. If the exclusions you set make the draw impossible, the app catches it before drawing and shows you an error explaining the conflict.
10. After the draw, you, as the organiser, never see who's gifting who. You only see whether each guest has viewed their result yet, and you can resend the result email if they lost it.
11. Each guest privately sees, with their same link as always, the name of the person they're gifting and their gift ideas, and can send them anonymous internal messages without revealing who they are.
12. Three days before the delivery date, the app sends an automatic reminder to anyone who still hasn't seen their result.

Letter to Santa

1. Create your child's profile with their name.
2. Write this year's letter: their age, how they've behaved, free text, and at least one gift idea. There's a minimum amount of content needed before you can send it.
3. Once it's ready, go to the review and send screen, made to experience together with your child. From there you can edit the letter with them, or confirm sending it.
4. Once confirmed, the letter is sent to Santa. This step can't be undone, although the letter stays editable afterwards.
5. Once sent, you can invite family and friends to see the letter and the gift list. Before sending it, this option isn't available yet.
6. You can also print a reply from Santa for your child. It never mentions specific gifts, so the surprise stays intact. This option also doesn't exist until you send the letter.
7. Everyone you invite sees the list and can join a gift, leaving an optional note. It's fine for several people to join the same gift, for example to split the cost between them.
8. You can join a gift yourself from your panel too. You'll show up marked as "You" instead of your email.
9. If someone wants to back out of a gift they claimed, they can do it any time, except in the last three days before Christmas. During those days, the button changes to "contact the family" instead of unclaiming, so no one finds out too late that a gift was left uncovered.
10. You can resend the invitation to anyone who hasn't opened it, or a reminder to anyone who opened it but hasn't done anything yet. You can also send a manual update to everyone with what's still needed. Keep in mind that manual update and the automatic reminder close to Christmas share the same "already sent" state, so using one cancels the other for that letter.
11. You can delete a specific year's letter, or a child's whole profile, whenever you want.