NEW YORK — Families, friends and companies looking to stretch scarce budgets without stomping all over holiday cheer are turning to Secret Santa, charitable donations and similar group gift exchanges in these sour economic times.

Web sites that take the sting out of organizing group giving report big increases in usage heading into Christmas and Hanukkah, with members of book groups, class parents buying the sole gift for teachers and other group givers joining the effort to hold down holiday spending.

Elfster.com, which offers three steps for inviting participants, drawing names and exchanging gifts, expects traffic to double this year over last year to more than 1 million visitors. FrumUs.com and Secretsanta.com said their users were also exploding ahead of Thanksgiving, when many people begin planning group gift exchanges.

“People are really concerned about the economy and want to cut back on their spending,” said Peter Imburg, creator of Elfster.

Group gift exchanges managed online and off, including Yankee Swaps and White Elephants, will preserve fun and keep spirits high this year while making it easier to reduce spending, he said.

At Secretsanta.com, founder and CEO Franco Yuvienco said the site has experienced a 25 percent increase in users so far this year over 2007. While spending limits imposed on groups by their online managers typically increase by about 10 percent, this year’s limits remain the same as last year, he said.

Even those who have done gift exchanges in the past are scaling back further.

Rosemarie Fabien suggested to her retired parents, aunt and sister that they change their annual Secret Santa ritual in two ways: First, everyone would spend $25 instead of $50. Second, everyone would donate that money to a charity rather than buying gifts that were likely to get returned anyway.

“I had no problem saying, ‘Look guys, we’re broke,’” said Fabien, of Wynnewood, Pa.. She is now a freelance communications consultant after losing her job with an architectural firm in February. “Saving money has to happen.”

The five young children in the family remain off limits for less giving, Fabien said, a common sentiment among parents and grandparents planning to trim back the holidays.

Debbie Farnoush said her family’s dry goods business is looking to save about $15,000 this year by drawing names for a Secret Santa exchange instead of holiday dinners and other parties for its 60 mostly factory workers in the Los Angeles area. Each worker received $50 from the company to spend on their gift recipient.

“We want to keep our employees happy and satisfied,” Farnoush said. “We don’t want them to think the company is going out of business and that they will be losing their jobs soon just because they’re hearing this stuff on the news.”

Ideas for group gift exchanges

• SECRET SANTA OR POLLYANA

• NOW YOU SEE IT, NOW YOU DON’T

• A COMMUNITY EFFORT

• COLLECTION CORRECTION

With money tight this holiday season, group gift exchanges can help trim expenses. There are lots of variations on the rules for the following games, but here are some basic ideas:

A few weeks ahead of a holiday, all group members put their names in a hat and then each draws a person’s name. You keep the name a secret and buy a gift for the person, often according to a spending limits. The gifts are typically bestowed during a party, where your “Secret Santa” is revealed.

To make things run smoothly, the group can also appoint an in-the-know coordinator who makes sure no one gets a name they had last year, or who can collect and distribute wish lists. Some Web sites have been created to help manage the game.

• WHITE ELEPHANT

The general idea of this group gift exchange is to steal your way to a great gift. Here’s how it works:

Instead of bringing a gift for a designated person, each guest at your party brings a random present, with a cap on the cost.

Everyone draws a number from a hat. “No. 1” selects a random wrapped present first and unwraps it. The person with “No. 2” can either choose another wrapped present or take No. 1’s present. And so on. If your gift is stolen, you get a new turn to either steal a gift or take an unwrapped one. (Many people also limit the times a single gift can be stolen. So, say, whoever is the third stealer gets to keep it.)

When everyone has had a turn, the game can end or you can go around the circle again.

“It’s a lot of fun when people throw ridiculous gifts in the pile,” said Brian Kimura, an architect in Portland who’s played the game at work. “It’s especially funny when the price cap is low, like $10. I once ended up with a pile of firewood.”

Similar to the White Elephant, this game is good for big groups. In this game, everyone brings a few wrapped presents to a party, from legitimate gifts to housewares to gags. The wrapped gifts all go in a central spot.

The host distributes pairs of dice, say one set down in front of every fifth person or so. Each player rolls the dice. Doubles earns players a gift of their choice and a chance to roll again. Play passes around the table, until all the gifts are taken.

At that point, the host sets a timer for 10 or 15 minutes, and doubles now earn players the chance to “steal” a gift from their friends. The pace of play usually quickens, and some players duel over specific gifts.

When time is up, everyone owns what they are left with. Unwrapping the gifts often proves amusing, when someone discovers that what was in the fancy, gold-wrapped giant box was a pack of toilet paper.

Sometimes, group gift exchanges work better as group gifts. Evette Rios, home and design expert on “Rachel Ray” and host of “G-Spot” on the Planet Green channel, says parents can band together and create something for all the kids on the block or in a play group.

For example, she suggests creating a neighborhood video game library. Each parent buys one of the latest video games and children can “sign out “ the game for a period of a few weeks. “Kids go through video games so quickly and then Grand Theft Auto 2 is just sitting there — why not pool resources?” she said.

What if you want don’t want to exchange gifts as a group, but just want to give one as a group? A noble notion, but the person who has to organize that is usually in for some work.

Karen O’Neil, a Boston-area working mom, developed a Web site this year called FrumUs.com that allows the organizer to create an online envelope where people can contribute via a Paypal account or credit card, vote on gifts, comment and shop.

“As a working mother, I was struck that there was no online solution for this endless stream of group gifts,” she said.

— Margit Detweiler, The Associated Press