Use a Secret Santa App or Just a Hat?

Who doesn’t love a Secret Santa?

It’s that time-honored office tradition of exchanging clandestine gifts with strangers or co-workers or strange co-workers. For the uninitiated: Names are assigned, a spending limit is set and outrageous gifts are given anonymously. The tradition is as time-honored as bad decisions made at the holiday party.

Secret Santa usually works best when a benevolent holiday dictator makes sure everyone has a name and everyone follows through. It’s a ritual that requires a Master of the List, a Keep of the Secrets — that is, until everyone finds out anyway. But that’s half the fun.

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But developer Andrew HunzekerHesed has offered a technological solution: The Secretest Santa mobile app. It’s easy to use: Just enter the names and emails of your participants and the app will generate random emails assigning everyone a partner. I tried this with a bunch of my email aliases, and it worked perfectly. The design is warm, the interface is user friendly — though the text could use a little copy editing.

Using Secretest Santa led me to question, though: Do we really need an app for this? Yes, there is an app for everything, but do we really need one to replace a holiday ritual that usually takes place in the copier room with a hat, torn slips of paper and a modicum of secrecy? It’s not even a holiday tradition that needs the protection of candy-colored Christmas nostalgia, but do we need to digitize everything?

But then again, maybe I’m just being a Scrooge. I guess I’m happy as long as people still give holiday gifts to friends, family and especially co-workers. It’s a chance, once a year, for us to get together and be thoughtful for those sitting just one cubicle over.

Patch also has its own iPhone app, which will connect you to local news, weather, events and business listings in your town.