My family is spread all over the place now, from my parents in Seattle to my brother in Austin, and honestly, trying to coordinate our Secret Santa exchange is turning into a total nightmare. Every year we do the whole email chain thing, but people either forget to reply, the random generator gets messed up, or someone ends up buying a gift that the person absolutely hates. I just want something simple where everyone can make a wishlist so we arent just guessing randomly. I looked at Elfster and read a few reviews saying it handles wishlists well, but then I saw a bunch of complaints about how aggressive the ads are and that it might sell user data which is a huge no for my sister who is super paranoid about privacy. Then I checked out Secret Santa Organizer but the interface looks like it was built in 1998 and I cant figure out if it actually lets people link their Amazon lists or if you have to manually type everything out. I dont have much time because we need to get the names drawn by next weekend and my budget for the actual gift is around 50 bucks, so I really dont want to spend hours setting up some complicated database or paying a subscription fee just for a Christmas gift swap.

Is there an app that actually keeps this simple? I need something that handles the drawing automatically but also forces people to put their interests or a direct link to a wishlist somewhere visible so I dont have to play middleman again. Has anyone found something that isnt super buggy or trying to harvest all my info just so we can swap socks and gift cards in peace? Everything I find online seems to be either way too bloated with features we dont need or so basic it doesnt solve the wishlist problem at all...