White Elephant?

To do a White Elephant gift exchange, everyone usually brings a wrapped item to exchange thatthey already have and don't want to keep. The idea of a "white elephant" as a gift is actually from Asian history. People do the exchange differently, but this is how we do it:

We agreed that everyone would bring a new (and not horribly useless) gift that was worth about $20. You don't let anyone know what gift you brought.
Every year, we argue about the rules. This year we wrote them down (and signed them):

We arrange all of the gifts on a table and draw numbers to see the order in which we will go. The person with number 1 picks a gift first from the pile and opens it.

The person with number 2 can either steal the opened gift or open a new one. If anyone's gift that they are holding is stolen, they can steal from someone else or open a new one. If you don't particularly want the gift you received, you can try to convince the next person in line that THEY want it so they steal and and you get to pick something else.


Our experience has led us to also include these rules:
-you can't choose the gift you brought first
-no alliances
-if you have had an item in your possession 3 times, it can no longer be stolen from you and it is yours (you must really want it!)

You should try this fun gift exchange if you haven't already!