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Thanksgiving

Everyone is already at the table. Draw the names now.

Thanksgiving is the last evening of the year with the whole family in one room, and it lands four weeks before Christmas. A draw done at the table is a draw that happens.

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Why families draw names at Thanksgiving

It is a question of who is in the room. Getting eighteen relatives to agree on anything by message takes a fortnight; getting them to agree while they are all sitting down takes about four minutes, and nobody has to be reminded twice.

The timing is the other half. Four weeks is long enough to find something a person would actually want, and short enough that nobody forgets they drew a name. A draw run in mid-December buys whatever is still on the shelf.

And it fixes the arithmetic. A family of eighteen buying for everyone is three hundred and six presents. One draw makes it eighteen — one each, with a real budget behind it.

How to run it at the table

  1. 1

    Raise it at dessert

    Not before the meal, when half the family is still arriving, and not at the door when coats are already on. Dessert is the one moment everybody is seated and nobody is cooking.

  2. 2

    Add everyone there and then

    First name, last name, email — read out loud around the table. Nobody installs anything and nobody creates an account.

  3. 3

    Mark who cannot draw whom

    Couples, the two who live together, the ones who already exchange privately: flag the pairs and the draw works around them.

  4. 4

    Send it before anyone leaves

    Everyone scratches a card on their phone while still at the table. You see who has opened theirs, never who they drew.

Settle these while everyone is listening

The budget, out loud, once
A number agreed at the table is a number nobody relitigates in December. Say a range rather than a ceiling — twenty to thirty — so the careful and the generous both land inside it.
Where the gifts get opened
Christmas Day, the Sunday before, or by post for whoever cannot travel. Decide it now: it changes what people buy and whether it has to survive a courier.
Who counts as one household
Couples and the relatives who share a roof usually should not draw each other — they will shop together and the surprise disappears. Flag them as exclusions rather than leaving them out.
The relatives who could not come
Anyone missing from the table can still be in the draw: they get the same email and the same card. Add them before you send, not after — a draw cannot take a new name once it has run.

Common questions

Can we draw at Thanksgiving but give at Christmas?

That is what most groups do, and it is what the reminders are built for. Set the event date to the day the gifts are opened, and the schedule works back from it.

How many people do you need?

Three is the minimum. With two there is no secret: each one knows they are giving to the other.

Can I stop two people from drawing each other?

Yes. Flag any pair and the draw routes around it. If the exclusions make a valid draw impossible, Pindao says so before a single email goes out.

Will I see who drew whom?

No. The matches are encrypted and never displayed, including to you as the organiser. Your dashboard shows progress only.

Do my guests need an account?

No. Each person gets a private link by email that works straight away. Only you sign in, and by email link rather than a password.

Somebody has no email address. What then?

Use the address of whoever they live with and hand them the phone at the table. The card is a link, so it opens anywhere — a grandparent scratching it on somebody else’s screen is the normal case, not a workaround.

Settle Christmas before the plates are cleared

Add the names, send the draw, and let everyone scratch while they are still sitting down.

Create our Thanksgiving drawPindao

Worth reading before you draw

Guides written for this kind of exchange — the rules, the budget, and the part that usually goes wrong.

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