White Elephant Gift Exchange/Game

A great inter-generational activity that creates life-long memories, white elephant exchanges involve gifting no longer wanted items to-be-determined friends and relatives.  Many families and groups prefer this to one-on-one exchanges since they minimize the expense and effort involved in personalized gift giving, and the game brings pleasure to all involved regardless of what they individually take home.

The rules can vary somewhat; here is the set I prefer:

1. Without leaving home, find a previously owned item that is clean and in good repair.
2. Consider anything that you are willing to give away – books, movies, kitchen utensils, knickknacks or that odd item your aunt gave you ten years ago. Memorable white elephants my family has enjoyed include an air popcorn popper, tall matching lamps, funny striped socks with discrete different colored toes, a new but unwanted water pik, a very large salt and pepper shaker, spa kits, chocolates,  a beautiful tea pot and a fake dog turd key hideaway. The turd was quite popular with the kids…
3. Avoid sized items like clothes or shoes, or open personal goods like toiletries – unless you know the people very, very well.
4. Funny, odd or weird gifts are acceptable provided they won’t turn your fellow partygoers off.  Remember, you want to be invited back. Alternatively, bring a joke gift and a nicer one, and when the time is right, bring the latter one out and offer the recipient their choice.
5. Wrap your present anyway that suits provided the wrapping gives no clue to the contents. Recyclable wrap is preferable to non-recyclable. Newspaper works well especially the comics. Boxes within boxes with lots of balled paper can be fun provided only of a few are wrapped that way. The group will get restless if each unwrapping takes more then a few seconds. Be sure to have recycling and trash receptacles on hand with someone monitoring it.
6. At the party, each participant places their wrapped surprise on a designated table, takes a number and when the time comes, sits anywhere in the room.
7. The first person selects and unwraps a present, shows it around and places it in plain view.
8. The next person may select and unwrap a gift or take the previous person’s gift, whereby that person gets to select another.
9. Then everyone takes a turn selecting or snatching gifts. In large groups, the third owner of an item gets to keep it.
10.  At the end, the first person receives another turn.
11.  Afterwards you may exchange with anyone who is willing to trade.

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