When does the Secret Santa Appeal take place?
General Public Appeal:
The Appeal takes place between Saturday 28th November 2026 and Friday 11th December 2026.
Mini Appeals:
Your mini appeal can start at anytime leading up to Saturday 28th November 2026, but we need the gifts dropping off on Friday 11th December 2026.
Unfortunately, we cannot accept any gifts after the above deadlines as they will be distributed to the charities and other organisations very shortly after this date to ensure delivery for Christmas.
How can I be involved?
Where and when can I donate a gift?
Do I need to take gifts with tags back to where I picked the tags up from?
Where can I drop off my gift(s)?
Can I arrange collection of my gifts?
What type of gift should I buy?
Should I wrap my gift?
We’ve collected more gifts than expected. What should we do?
Who do we collect gifts for?
I am from a charity and would be interested in receiving gifts. How can I get involved?
How can I get involved?
There are lots of ways to be part of the Secret Santa Appeal, whether you would like to donate just one gift, bring a group of people together to collect gifts, or simply help us spread the word.
Every gift helps, and everyone is welcome to get involved.
I’d like to donate one or two gifts
Wonderful — you don’t need to register with us.
Simply choose a gift suitable for a child or young person and attach a Secret Santa gift tag.
You can either:
- Download and print a gift tag from our Gift Tags page, or
- Visit one of our Secret Santa Appeal Christmas Trees, where tags for children and young people are available to collect.
Once you have bought your gift, take it — with the tag securely attached — to one of our participating Secret Santa Appeal drop-off points across Bradford, Calderdale or Kirklees.
You can find your nearest collection point on our Secret Santa Appeal Christmas Tree & Drop-Off Locations page.
There is no need to fill a sack or spend a fortune.
One gift = one act of kindness.
I’d like to run a Mini-Appeal
Mini-Appeals are a fantastic way for friends, families, neighbours, workplaces, businesses, schools, churches, clubs and community organisations to come together and support local children at Christmas.
The way Mini-Appeals operate is slightly different depending upon which area you are collecting in.
Mini-Appeals in the Bradford District
Mini-Appeals operating within the Bradford District are administered directly by the Secret Santa Appeal team.
Please complete our Mini-Appeal Registration Form.
Once registrations and nominations from the charities and organisations we support have been brought together, we will contact registered Mini-Appeal organisers with the information and gift tags they need.
We normally expect to send these details to organisers around mid-November.
Your Mini-Appeal can be as large or as small as you like. It might involve an entire business or school, a church congregation, a group of friends, your neighbours or simply a few people wanting to do something wonderful together.
Mini-Appeals in Calderdale
If you would like to organise a Mini-Appeal in Calderdale, you do not need to complete the Bradford Mini-Appeal registration form.
Instead, please visit the Secret Santa Appeal Christmas Tree at:
Eureka! The National Children’s Museum, Halifax – Tuesday to Sunday 10am – 4pm
You can collect a number of gift tags for nominated children from the tree, take them back to your workplace, organisation, community group, friends or family and organise your collection.
Once the gifts have been collected, please return them to the designated Secret Santa Appeal drop-off point at Eureka.
Mini-Appeals in Kirklees
If you would like to organise a Mini-Appeal in Kirklees, you do not need to complete the Bradford Mini-Appeal registration form.
Instead, please visit the Secret Santa Appeal Christmas Tree at:
Fresh Futures – Monday to Friday 8am – 5.30pm
Brian Jackson House
2 New North Parade
Huddersfield
HD1 5JP
You can collect a number of gift tags for nominated children from the tree and use them to organise your Mini-Appeal amongst colleagues, friends, family or your community.
Once your gifts have been collected, please return them to the designated Fresh Futures Secret Santa Appeal drop-off point.
Where can I donate my gifts?
Our Secret Santa Appeal operates across Bradford, Calderdale and Kirklees, with Christmas Trees and gift drop-off locations in each area.
For the most up-to-date list of locations and opening times, please visit our:
Secret Santa Appeal Christmas Tree & Drop-Off Locations
For Bradford, our main public collection point is:
Bradford Bulls Community Foundation
Odsal Stadium
Bradford
BD6 1BS
Individual donors are very welcome to download a tag beforehand from our Gift Tags page and bring their tagged gift directly to one of our collection points.
Help us spread a little Christmas kindness ❤️
You don’t have to donate a gift to make a difference.
One of the simplest ways you can help the Secret Santa Appeal is by telling other people about it.
Share the Appeal with your friends and family. Mention it at work. Tell your school, church, community group or club. Share our posts on social media or encourage someone you know to run a Mini-Appeal.
The more people who hear about the Appeal, the more children and families we can reach.
You can follow, share and support us on:
Facebook: Secret Santa Appeal
Instagram: @secretsantaappeal
X: @secretsantaWY
A share costs nothing — but it might introduce the Appeal to the person who donates the next gift, starts the next Mini-Appeal or helps another child have something to open at Christmas.
Where can I drop off my gift(s)?
You can drop your gift at any of the Secret Santa locations listed below:-
If you are an individual (member of the public) wanting to buy a gift to donate, you can drop your gift off
Bradford – Bradford Bulls Community Foundation Office, Odsal Stadium, Bradford, BD6 1BS up to Friday 11th December 2026 during opening hours (Monday to Friday 9am until 4pm only).
Calderdale – Eureka – The National Children’s Museum, Halifax – Tuesday to Sunday 10am – 4pm
Kirklees – Fresh Futures, Charity Number 288125, Brian Jackson House, 2 New North Parade, Huddersfield HD1 5JP
Please attach your tag to the gift. If you are bringing numerous gifts, please put your gifts in bin liners or bigger carrier bags. There will be a code on your tags and if you could identity this code on each bag, it would be much appreciated. Please be prepared to carry your gifts and bring sufficient help with you.
Do I need to take gifts with tags back to where I picked the tags up from?
Yes please. If you collect a tag from, for example, Halifax it must be returned to the Halifax collection/drop-off point. All gifts collected in the different areas such as Bradford, Calderdale and Kirklees go to help children in those specific areas.
Can I arrange collection of my gifts?
Unfortunately we cannot offer collection of gifts. The Secret Santa team are all volunteers who work full-time for other organisations. We instead offer a central drop-off point at Bradford Bulls Community Foundation Office in Bradford, please see details above.
What type of gift should I buy?
We ask that you kindly follow our donation guidelines.
For safeguarding reasons, we ask that all gifts are left unwrapped. The gifts can then be easily checked by the Secret Santa team and the relevant charities to ensure that they are appropriate. Any gifts that arrive wrapped will unfortunately need to be opened.
If you would like to donate any wrapping paper, we can pass this onto the charities and organisation so that they can wrap the gifts once checked.
We’ve collected more gifts than expected. What should we do?
That’s great news. If you manage to collect extra gifts, please kindly label these gifts if possible with a sticker stating an age and gender. We can then make sure they are allocated to charities with emergencies over Christmas.
If you are running a mini-appeal and have collected additional gifts please email the Secret Santa team at team@secretsantaappeal.org.uk to let us know your final numbers collected.
I am from a charity and would be interested in receiving gifts. How can I get involved?
We partner with a number of local charities and organisations that work with disadvantaged families, young people and children, but we are always interested in hearing from others that we may be able to help. Please complete our online registration form and we will contact you to discuss how we can help.
WE DO NOT HANDLE DIRECT REQUESTS FOR GIFTS FROM THE GENERAL PUBLIC
Who do we collect gifts for?
We only accept requests for gifts from charities and local authority agencies who work with disadvantaged families and children on a daily basis. The Secret Santa Appeal is fundamentally a secret appeal whereby families and their children hopefully do not know where the gifts come from.
If you have any further questions which are not answered above, please email team@secretsantaappeal.org.uk. Our team work full-time so may not be able to respond instantly, but someone will come back to you as soon as possible.