Secret Halloween Gift Exchange

A Halloween gift exchange game for the street or the party, on one printed sheet.

1: Fill a bag or a pail with small treats for one household nearby.Enough for everyone who lives there. The What goes in the bag sheet has themes.
2: Add a sign for their door and a note that explains the game.The sign shows a ghost and the words We have had ours. The note asks them to treat two more homes.
3: After dark, set the bag on the doorstep, knock and slip out of sight.Children go with a grown-up. Not being seen is the whole game.
4: The household tapes the sign to its door or a front window.The sign tells the next giver that this home has had its visit.
5: Within two days, that household fills two bags for two homes with no sign.Two for one is how it spreads along a street in a week.
6: A home that shows the sign is skipped.No sign and no lights on? Skip that one too. Not everybody wants a knock after dark.
7: The chain stops on October 31.Halloween is October 31. Signs come down the morning after.
8: Nobody ever says who started it.The first giver hangs a sign too, so their door looks like all the others.

Next step More themes for what to bring More ways to run a gift exchange

How it works

A secret Halloween gift exchange starts with a bag of treats left on a neighbor's doorstep after dark and a sign for their door. Print this list prints the eight steps. Streets vary the rules, and none is official.

Read the full guide

Halloween gift exchange ideas for a party

Choose Party swaps in the list next to Print this list for eight ways to hand out wrapped gifts: a slip marked trick or treat inside each gift, a cauldron grab bag, feel boxes, a web of strings.

The other sheets

Secret pumpkin week is for an office or a school's staff. What goes in the bag lists themes in words, with a bag that holds no food among them. Settled disputes covers a second visit, a door nobody answers and a neighbor who would rather not.

Tips

Start the doorstep swap in the second week of October, so the chain has time to travel.
Print the steps twice: the neighbor needs the note as much as you do.

Questions and answers

What is a secret pumpkin gift exchange?

A Halloween version of a secret Santa, often run in a workplace or among a school's staff. Names are drawn two weeks ahead, small treats are left in the last week of October, and one gift is opened at the reveal.

How does the secret doorstep swap spread?

Each household that gets a bag fills two more within two days, for two homes that show no sign. One bag in the second week of October can reach most of a street by the 31st.

What should the sign say?

Anything a neighbor can read from the street. A drawn ghost and the words We have had ours is enough. It stays on the door or a front window until the morning after Halloween.

What goes in the bag?

Small things for the whole household: wrapped candy, things that glow, a craft for the same evening or a baking kit. For a home you do not know well, choose the bag with no food at all.

Which swap is easiest at a Halloween party?

A slip in every gift. Hide one inside the wrapping of each. A treat slip means you keep it, and a trick slip means you swap with any player you choose.

All 39 ideas

Secret doorstep swap 8

1: Fill a bag or a pail with small treats for one household nearby. Enough for everyone who lives there. The What goes in the bag sheet has themes.
2: Add a sign for their door and a note that explains the game. The sign shows a ghost and the words We have had ours. The note asks them to treat two more homes.
3: After dark, set the bag on the doorstep, knock and slip out of sight. Children go with a grown-up. Not being seen is the whole game.
4: The household tapes the sign to its door or a front window. The sign tells the next giver that this home has had its visit.
5: Within two days, that household fills two bags for two homes with no sign. Two for one is how it spreads along a street in a week.
6: A home that shows the sign is skipped. No sign and no lights on? Skip that one too. Not everybody wants a knock after dark.
7: The chain stops on October 31. Halloween is October 31. Signs come down the morning after.
8: Nobody ever says who started it. The first giver hangs a sign too, so their door looks like all the others.

Show all 39 ideas (31 more)

Party swaps 8

A slip in every gift: keep it or swap it Half the slips say treat and half say trick. Treat keeps the gift. Trick swaps it with any player you choose.
Cauldron grab bag Gifts go into a big pot under a cloth. Reach in without looking, the best costume by room vote going first.
Costume call The host calls kinds of costume in any order: animals, anything with a hat, anything green. Called players pick a gift.
Creature cards Givers tag each gift with a creature: bat, owl, black cat, spider. Draw a creature card to learn which gift is yours.
Feel boxes Each gift sits in a box with a hole for a hand. Feel one, then take that box or move along. Two passes at most.
Glow colors set who picks first Lights low. Each player draws a glow bracelet from a bag, and the host reads out which color picks first.
Paper pumpkin numbers Numbered paper pumpkins are hidden around the room. The number you find is your turn to choose.
String web Tie a long string to every gift and tangle the strings across the room. Choose a loose end and follow it home.

Secret pumpkin week 6

1: Two weeks before Halloween, every name goes into a plastic pumpkin. Each person draws one name. Drawing your own means drawing again.
2: Everyone fills in a short card: a candy, a color, a snack they never eat. The organizer hands each card to the person who drew that name.
3: In the last week of October, leave two small treats for your person. On a desk, in a mail tray or on a coat hook, when nobody is looking.
4: Sign every note Your Secret Pumpkin. Disguise your handwriting, or ask a friend to write the tag.
5: On the last day together before October 31, bring one wrapped gift. The organizer sets one amount for everyone at the start.
6: Each person opens, guesses, and then the secret pumpkin steps forward. A wrong guess costs nothing. The giver opens next.

What goes in the bag 8

A baking kit Cookie cutters shaped like bats and pumpkins, sprinkles and a recipe card.
A craft for the same evening Colored paper, googly eyes, pipe cleaners and a glue stick, with a picture of what to make.
A little something for the dog or the cat A toy or a pet treat, labeled so that nobody else eats it.
Decorations for the entrance A paper garland, window stickers, a small gourd.
No food at all Pencils, stickers, erasers, bubbles and stamps, for a home where you do not know what people can eat.
Orange and black, nothing else Anything at all, as long as it is one of the two colors.
Things that glow Glow sticks, a small flashlight, reflective stickers for a costume.
Wrapped candy, a handful for each person Sealed and store-wrapped, so the household knows what it is getting.

Settled disputes 9

A child is sad that no bag has come yet. A grown-up may quietly start a second chain at that end of the street.
A neighbor would rather not take part. They keep the bag and hang the sign so that nobody knocks again. The chain goes on elsewhere.
A secret pumpkin is away on the reveal day. They hand the gift to the organizer beforehand, and their person guesses as usual.
At a party, a player arrived with no costume. They pick first. A hat from the dress-up box counts as a costume for the night.
The knock went unanswered. Leave the bag anyway, tucked out of the rain. The note inside explains itself.
Our home has been visited twice. Move the sign to where it shows from the street, and pass the second bag on to a home without one.
They spotted us leaving. Then it is not a secret anymore, and that is fine. Wave.
We cannot tell which foods that household avoids. Use the bag with no food at all.
The whole block already shows a ghost in the window. Carry on to the next street, or let it rest. Nobody is keeping count.

How this list was compiled: Written for this site by the Game Night Generator editors on 2026-10-03: five sheets in our own words for giving small gifts at Halloween. The doorstep swap is a neighborhood custom with many local versions and no official rules, and no single published source was used; the sheet gives one common way to run it and every line is a house rule of the editors. The date, October 31, was read on English Wikipedia that day (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween, CC BY-SA 4.0). No shop, brand, product or price is named; the amount is whatever the organizer sets. A script compared every row with every other list on this site, and no row repeats one. Licence: own work