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So I've gone to a white elephant gift party a few years in a row, and over time I've considered the gift in different ways.

What have you given as white elephant gifts that have been highlights of the parties you've attended?

I'm sorry, I'm confused... what's a white elephant gift? I'm assuming it's not customary for you to trade pachyderms...

A white elephant is a gift that's actually a burden. It comes from stories about Siamese kings who would give a white elephant, a sacred symbol protected from labour, to a person. The 'gift' was actually a burden: although it was sacred, the cost of keeping and feeding it was huge and in no way did it help with the matter because you couldn't use it to cultivate crops, transport goods, etc.

It's a gift giving game, similar to Secret Santa, except that the gifts are distributed randomly, in a random order, and instead of opening a new gift on your turn you can choose to steal a gift that's already been opened by another person. Bringing gag gifts is kind of customary.

I've done a few of these. I kind of alternate between gifts that probably no one wants (ie. a garden gnome), and gifts that about half the people there could want and will probably get traded a few times (like whisky gift sets).

This year I actually ended up with my own gift, a box set of the first 4 ASoFaI books.

Let's see... a magic 8-ball, a case of Budweiser, an ugly scented candle. Nothing too earth shaking, but fun stuff none the less. I always enjoy white elephant parties.

I went to my first one; it was a faculty party. I got an ugly ugly purse that this other teacher liked. At the end of the game, she traded me for her wine aerator. Apparently she liked it. I started out with a gift basket that contained beer and the Hangover DVD, but someone stole it. Another person left with toilet paper... another with Walgreen's reading glasses... but then there was one girl who left with a 30$ spa gift card.

I think we call these Dirty Santa parties around here. It's basically crappy-but-fun gag gifts.

The idea of an ACTUAL white elephant party, where you try to inconvenience the other person as much as possible under the guise of a "gift" sounds awesome.

doomdragon6 said:

I think we call these Dirty Santa parties around here. It's basically crappy-but-fun gag gifts.

The idea of an ACTUAL white elephant party, where you try to inconvenience the other person as much as possible under the guise of a "gift" sounds awesome.

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Yeah, the closest things we get to real white elephants are things that require service to operate - like a complete directTV setup, or an old-ish Tivo.

Usually there are 4-5 gifts that people really want and get traded a lot. There are a few funny gifts that get traded a lot. It's become a game of strategy - you might choose to steal something you know will get stolen near the end of the game so you can steal the thing you really wanted, for instance. A lot of the truly terrible gifts often include chocolate or some other attractive gift so they still see some trading, but you end up stuck with the chia pet or the old faucet or whatever.

It's always always fun though - the game is the whole point, the gifts are merely the playing pieces, and you tend to learn some interesting things about the people involved from their actions and reactions.

I'm still thinking about what I want to bring to tonight's game though...

stienman said:

I'm still thinking about what I want to bring to tonight's game though...

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If you truly cannot think of something else I've always found toy stores are the best place to go.

Nerf belt-fed machine gun. That is all.

Officer_Charon said:

Nerf belt-fed machine gun. That is all.

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No, that is an extremely awesome gift, not a white elephant...

One could argue that purchasing enough darts to make it viable as a long-term use toy could add to it's costs...

Plus I have it on good authority from several sources that after about it week they tend to break down....

I got someone a pack of VCR cleaning swabs once.

--Patrick

PatrThom said:

I got someone a pack of VCR cleaning swabs once.

--Patrick

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Wow! That is .... sheer genius.

I am really lousy at giving those kind of gifts. I always end up buying something that is nice. I just can't give crappy gifts to people.

Once gave my sister in law two pounds of cat hair as a gag gift. She took it to one of these parties and turned it into an expensive bottle of wine that was gifted to a non-drinker.