We had a gift exchange at work this year. This is what I brought, which was the most-stolen item:

Avenging Unicorn Play Set
http://www.mcphee.com/items/11554.html

I ended up with a Dummies book -- "Starting an eBay Business for Dummies." Not a bad gift. Interestingly, someone offered to buy it from me before the party was over.

I'm not sure what you mean by "anecdotal" w/r/t to the derivation of the phrase "white elephant." Are you saying that's not the true origin? I can't find a better alternative explanation ...

I had not heard of this before. What's the optimal size for the group? It sound like fun for 10-20 people, but does it scale to, say, 100 people?

Wikipedia gives three different derivations of the term (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_elephant,">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_elephant,</a>; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_elephant_%28pachyderm%29,">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_elephant_%28pachyderm%29,</a>; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_elephant_gift_exchange),">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_elephant_gift_exchange),</a> although the Thai king version sounds most likely to me.

The most stolen gift at the last one of these I did was a pair of very cute jammies (with penguins on them).

In exchanges where the recipient can select their gift from the "pool", my fave is a 24- or 48-pack of toilet paper. The box is gigantic, and after all isn't bigger == better ?

=)

My in-laws' neighborhood has a New Year's party every year with a white elephant gift exchange. There have been some great gifts going around the neighborhood for 20 years. The best I ever saw was when one neighbor stole and wrapped up another's hubcaps and gave them at the gift exchange. The victim's response when they were opened and his efforts to steal them back all night were priceless!

> I can't find a better alternative explanation

There's no substantive evidence that Thai kings actually gave white elephants as "gifts". It's a great story though.

Avenging Unicorn? must.. stop.. laughing.. why didn't I know about this until now?

The toilet paper thing is funny but a little cruel. You'd have to package it with a gift card of some kind (maybe hidden?) to get the value up to $20. That or else it's REALLY nice TP.

> but does it scale to, say, 100 people

Good question. I've only played with ~30 max. I think you'd have to modify the rules a bit to reduce the trading. Maybe 3 steals per turn max? And you'd definitely need a "referee" to keep things moving quickly with a group of that size.

It is tremendous fun though.

I attended my first white elephant party this year, (although it was called "greedy santa", the rules were almost the same). Extremely fun game, I wasnt aware of how important it is to get bizarre gifts and i just bought a boring gift card z.z.zzz, now i know. :)

Here in Maine (and maybe elsewhere in New England) this game is generally called Yankee Swap (although there is another kind of Yankee Swap as well).

I've played it at work with up to 70 people. Yes you definitely need someone to keep everybody on track, but it's uproariously fun. I've played it at home with the family too and under 10 people doesn't seem to be enough to get the momentum going. Either that, or everyone in my family is too "polite" or easily satisfied by weird gifts to get the swapping part happening!

The best Yankee Swap gift I ever brought to one of these was a "Peanut Butter And Jelly Sandwich Kit". It was basically a loaf of nice bread, jars of good peanut butter and jelly, on one of those blue speckled enameled tin camping plates, with a spreader knife, wrapped up in a nice big colorful dish towel. It was traded several times, and the final recipient just mentioned to me today that he still uses the plate all the time.

The other kind of Yankee Swap is more of a true swap. Everyone coming to the party brings a number of things from their house that they don't want anymore. Everything is put on a big table (unwrapped), and everyone can simply pick what they want. Anything left over gets brought to Goodwill. People can get rid of "junk", bring home something they like (hopefully), and no money was spent. That's the part that yankees mostly appreciate I suspect.

One of the things I miss about a small company I used to work for is the white elephant gift parties they'd have every Christmas. The all-time best gift (or worst, depending on your perspective) was one that made an appearance every year, namely a Chia Head (<a href="http://www.chia.com/chia.html#guy).">http://www.chia.com/chia.html#guy).</a>

One year, one of the most-stolen gifts was a big tin bucket of popcorn. We also lamented how the Chia Head had not made an appearance, that it had seemed to have completed its run. Well, guess what was inside the bucket.

white elephant

1. A costly possession requiring so much upkeep that it becomes a burden.

Maybe because it takes so much effort to wash and keep a white elephant clean and sparkly?

The version of "Yankee Swap" I have always played (both in Alaska and now in Maine) only let you swap once with a person.

You drew numbers. 1 goes first. Each player opens 1 gift. They can then swap it with another players item. Only 1 trade allowed. At the end, player 1 gets to swap with any player.

I think I am going to try this "White Elephant" variation next year. :)

My wife's family has been doing this with friends for years, but no gifts are unwrapped until all trading has finished.

In consecutive years, I received 2-packs of tape measures - I have no idea how. I got a 2-pack of yellow plastic-cased ones one year, and a 2-pack of metal-cased ones the next.

They have one musical refrigerator magnet that gets recycled (regifted) every year.

When I was finally old enough to be in the adult white elephant gift exchange the gift I ended up with was a disposable diaper with chunks of fudged (the kind with nuts) in it. I couldn't bring myself to eat it.

A bottle of Jack Daniels is not an inappropriate gift. I'd love to get that :)

We used to do this at my old work. My boss got a baseball hat with the phrase "Show me your b**bs".

I chuckled when I read this article, this was my first christmas with my new company and I had never experienced this "method" before. I was #2 which isn't a good number for this game. I promptly went for the big box. Before I open it I should mentioned that many of the other gifts included misc niceties such as best buy gift certificates, formal pens, portal DVD etc. I was very surprised to find that I opened up a weighted down box that contained a NC state chicken head. For those of you less familiar with this hat it's similar to red skull cap with a chick head and long chicken legs that drape down more then a foot to my shoulders. Needless to say nobody "stole" it from me! I thought at least my son would get a kick out of it. He simply ran away scared and crying! Anyways hope you have yourself a good new year Jeff. take care

Josh (NC)

> I was #2 which isn't a good number for this game

It's the worst number! :P

> Needless to say nobody "stole" it from me!

This is why I like the idea of hiding a high-value gift card in one wacky item.

I lucked out and drew #1 at Vertigo this year, but I couldn't bring myself to use the final trade. I guess I should have, just for laughs.. ;)

This is great. I am going to my first white elephant party in a couple of weeks, and I didn't realize how fun it could be. I didn't know the rules either. Thanks!!

a 20 inch tall chubaka pez dispencer- with sound effects.

I'm in the Air Force Reserves, and every year my unit has a Christmas Party and the "White Elephant" is the highlight. We usually end up with a little bit over 100 people participating. And usually, there is plenty of alcohol, sometimes very exotic alcohol as the gifts. There is also a few items that have been "re-gifted" for several years now, such as the "adult friend blow-up doll". It's funny, but one year I bought oven-mitts and the wives actually were fighting over them. You never know what you'll end up with. Best I ever did, a nice tea sampler set that had about 25 different types of tea.

We have gained a reputation with my husbands work party for having the craziest W.E. gifts. it is hard to top yourself each year. Last years was our best ever! We bought a nice box of chocolates. when the gift was opened the recipient found a picture of us eating the chocolates and about 4 half eaten chocolates left in the box. But since most of the people coming bring nice gifts, we also included a gift card.

One year for a White Elephant, my gift was a set of 10 different lottery tickets. However, the catch is that one of them was a fake winner in the amount of $10,000. That got traded many times and eventually ended up w/ one of my uncles that had recently been layed off from IBM! Seeing his face light up after scratching the winning (fake) ticket is definitely priceless..

Usually give a goofy gift. That I'd think no one would want and then put lottery tickets hidden in the gift. But a lot of times people actually wanted the goofy gift. Once I gave a white elephant saying I thought that's what you were suppose to give. After a few years of lottery tickets people would fought to get the gift they thought I brought. So this year I still gave lottery tickets but they were already scratched off. My explaination I just wanted to see if you had any winners.

ive got one tomorrow and what i plan on doing is taking a picture of my face, and blowing it up to be the size of a page
then im going to sign it in sharpie
it most likely will get laughs

The best gift I ever gave for WE was a giant donkey that would glow in the dark, it was meant for an outdoor nativity scene. It was actually exchanged three times.

Best/Worst gift recieved was a bottle of Boones Farm with a travel sized bottel of KY lotion and 50 dollar sears gift card taped to it. Needless to say the 50 bucks was worth the humiliation, however joke was on me, the card had no money on it!

This is such a better name than "Chinese gift exchange" which is what they call it around here.

Best gifts I've done and here a humorously irritating gift to get were:
(note that I work with a church youth group, we have a $5 max)
#1, all time favorite, I still laugh even now: (husband gave) photo album with every sleeve filled with pictures of himself dressed up as other people. This took some time, but it was hilarious to see the kids reaction, lets just say he asked if i wanted to buy it from him for $5...i declined, seeings how i had the duplicates).
#2, not nearly as awesome but still funny: coloring book with each page already colored completely.

I win. I once recieved the cremated ashes of a co-worker's father who had died a few weeks prior to the party. The theme was "Something that is not needed anymore."

Knowing the guy (the dead one), he would have gotten a big kick being passed around a w/e exchange. My wife and I took 'dad' around to all of the tourist destinations in town, and had our pictures taken with the box. He even went to several other exchanges, and somehow, we always went home with him!

Later, after the Christmas season, the co-worker and I had a nice internment ceremony, but I can't say where. Let's just say that 'dad' would have approved!

One of the best I have seen was a large box, beautifully wrapped and inside was a pair of LIVE lobster!

Our family circulates an old 1X4 piece of wood wall hanging that someone shellacked and added goofy pics of the boys when they were little (bad hair, missing teeth, etc). NOBODY wants to get that awful thing, and whomever does get it tries to disguise it for the next go around. Last year someone sawed it in half and put a hinge on it and hid it in a great looking toolbox. Hysterical!

i got this shirt once :)

<a href="http://www.cafepress.com/fightinwhite.18988413">http://www.cafepress.com/fightinwhite.18988413</a>;

and i'm asian. i was rather confused.

You have a great idea,I think i'll try it this year. I have five grown kids frm 25 to 37 and thats a good way to save money for Christmas,and there wives to.... Thanks a lot... Pat