Secret Santa Website

A web application to manage Secret Santa gift exchanges with automated assignments and message sharing

Features

Admin Features

• Add and manage participants
• View and edit past Secret Santa assignments via scoreboard
• Start new Secret Santa rounds with customizable settings
• Option to require messages from all participants before starting
• Track participant history

Participant Features

• Personal dashboard showing current and past Secret Santa assignments
• Write and save messages for the current year's exchange
• View messages from past Secret Santa partners
• Edit personal login details
• Festive Christmas-themed interface with animated snowflakes and light decorations

Assignment Logic

• Intelligent assignment system that prevents participants from:
  • Being assigned to themselves
  • Getting the same person they had in the previous 2 years
• Automatic validation of assignments to ensure fair distribution

Security

• Password-protected accounts for all users
• Role-based access control (admin/participant)
• Secure password hashing

Database Structure

• Participants table for user management
• Assignments table for Secret Santa pairings
• Messages table for yearly participant messages

Note

Due to the assignment restrictions (no repeat assignments from previous 2 years), there is a minimum required number of participants for the system to work effectively. For smaller groups, the code must be modified to get good results

Environment Variables

Create a file named .env in the instance directory with the following variables:

Setup and Configuration

Setup varies depending how you want to host the application. Example below for a docker-compose that can be used and for hosting it on an unraid NAS.

Docker-Compose

The network br0 is used if you want to use a reverse proxy (npm for example) and host the application on unraid. Normally not needed

services:
  app:
    image: python:3.12-slim
    container_name: secret_santa
    working_dir: /app
    volumes:
      - /mnt/user/appdata/secret-santa:/app
    command: sh -c "pip install --no-cache-dir -r requirements.txt && python app.py"
    build:
      context: /mnt/user/appdata/secret-santa
      dockerfile: Dockerfile
    networks:
      - br0

networks:
  br0:
    external: true

Create a instance/.env file with the following structure:

SECRET_KEY=secret_key (16 characters)
ADMIN_NAME=admin_name
ADMIN_PASSWORD=password
FLASK_RUN_PORT=your_port (default for flask is 5000)
FLASK_ENV=production (or development, testing)
FLASK_DEBUG=0 (or 1 to enable debugging)

Change the config/logging_config.yaml file if needed