Reddit Launches Secret Santa 2012 With Guinness World Record Hopes; Sign-Up Ends Nov. 26, Deadline For Shipping Gifts Dec. 14

After Guinness World Records officially rewarded the Reddit community in August with the record for the Largest Game of Secret Santa played back in November 2011, the quirky and prominent social news website is at it again. Reddit announced its intentions on Monday to break its newly-minted Guinness World Record again in 2012. ust hours after the was posted, the site is well on its way.

Just six hours into the 2012 campaign, the site is well on its way: More than 20,000 Redditors have already signed up for this year's game.

"It's that time of year again!" said Monday's posting on RedditGifts.com, which was acquired by Reddit.com in Aug. 2011 to support its growing gift exchange network. "The time where people from all over the world come together on reddit to do something nice for each other! This year we are working with Guinness again in an attempt to break our own world record and if we beat it, you can get your very own Guinness certificate!"

In August, RedditGifts' administrator "kickme444" emailed all 30,250 participants in 115 countries from November's record-breaking game with instructions on how to receive their own official certificates from Guinness, if they wanted one.

"Possibly even more than the world record, we are proud for all of the good that is done on redditgifts," kickme444 wrote on the RedditGifts blog. "Did you know that this year we have raised $38,322 for DonorsChoose.org? All of that was helping get books into children's classrooms. Did you know that right now we have more than 1,500 redditors signed up to send teachers around the world at least $15 in school supplies? You can still sign up to help with this right here (or please tell your teacher friends to sign up and receive supplies). We are so proud of all of you redditgiftors and redditors. You make the world suck less!"

RedditGifts is currently open for any registered Redditor -- the site is free to sign-up for -- and sign-up will end three weeks from today on Monday, Nov. 26. RedditGifts requires all gifts are shipped by Dec. 14.

On the comments page for the link, a number of Redditors shared their past experiences with prior Secret Santa exchanges from Reddit.

"As a cool success story, a couple years ago I got a guy who worked at EA in Vancouver and sent me a dozen brand new wrapped xbox 360 games," wrote Tr3v0r. "Cool thing is that I wasn't even his SS, he was mine. /u/riplin is the man.

Redditor "andrewsmith1986" posted a picture of his Secret Santa gift, which he said was "amazing" because his Secret Santa "absolutely stalked" him.

"Toilet paper: first time I was ever best of-ed (about 4 years ago) was a fight about folding vs crumpling," andrewsmith1986 wrote. "Dove deodorant: I once casually mentioned (years ago) that dove is my deodorant of choice. The book on secret societies is due to me having /r/secretcabal. Woodworking book is because I love woodworking and often whore out /r/woodworking. Geology book is because I'm a geologist. Not sure why the 1001 things to see book. The gun lock is because I had just mentioned that I bought a shotgun. And the chris brown cd is because my biggest witch hunt was due to me defended a mods actions about chris brown. I can't remember what DVD that is."

Reddit only has a handful of rules, guidelines and suggestions for Secret Santa. The rules require users must have a Reddit account and a valid email address, and they must adhere to the Dec. 14 shipping deadline. Reddit discourages trolling, but only will ban users that don't mark their gifts shipped and/or received on RedditGifts within 25 days of being sent. Reddit's full list of guidelines for Secret Santa 2012 is here.

Redditors and Internet users alike can track the progress of RedditGifts' 2012 campaign to break its own Guinness World Record on the site's statistics page, and see all the countries where those users are from on the site's map page.