If you’ve played Secret Santa before, you know the drill: A group of people are assigned to buy a gift for another person anonymously. The game is named this because the gift receivers have no idea who their “Secret Santa” is. Often times, Secret Santa will draw names out of a hat to determine who they need to buy a gift for. In many versions of the game, people try to guess who their Secret Santa is after they’ve opened their gifts.

Secret Santa is primarily a Western tradition; a Philanthropist named Larry Dean Stewart is thought to be the “original Secret Santa” who came up with the idea of giving anonymous gifts during the holidays. For more than 25 years, Stewart secretly donated $100 bills to people in Kansas, according to USA TODAY. He also donated $25,000 in the form of $100 bills to New Yorkers after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It wasn’t until 2006 that Stewart came out as the “Secret Santa” everyone had been wondering about for so long.

While the name of the game is largely familiar to people who live in the United States, Secret Santa is known as something entirely different in many other countries. For instance, people living in the United Kingdom play a very similar game, only it’s called “Kris Kringle.” In Ireland, it’s Kris Kindle (adapted from “Christkindl,” which means “Christ child”). People in Canada, Australia, and Austria will probably recognize any one or all of the three names. Over in the Germany, however, Secret Santa is called “Wichteln,” which comes from “Wichtel,” meaning goblin or elf.

Junior, Meghan Mendoza said, “I much prefer Secret Santa over other types of gift exchange games like White Elephant, for instance, where people put a bunch of wrapped gifts in a pile, claim one each, open them, and then take or “steal” gifts that other people received. It seems like an awkward situation especially if you’re playing with people who get upset easily, and one that doesn’t seem to embrace the true spirit of giving. Maybe that’s just me, though.”

Information was collected from BDG Media, Inc.