The White Elephant Office Gift Exchange

If you haven’t heard of “The White Elephant Office Gift Exchange”, then you should read on to find out more about this fun way for your office to participate in a holiday or end of the year gift exchange. “The White Elephant Office Gift Exchange” goes by several different names and is a fun and lighthearted way to take the stress out of exchanging gifts at the office or trying to find the perfect “Secret Santa” gift for co-workers. It’s also called a Yankee Swap, Dirty Santa, The Grinch Game, and many other names. According to Wikipedia, the definition of the term “white elephant” refers to an extravagant but burdensome gift that cannot be easily disposed of. It is based on the legend of the King of Siam gifting rate albino elephants to courtiers who had displeased him, that they might be ruined by the animals’ upkeep costs. The office exchange game is a little less nefarious though.

How to Play the White Elephant Gift Exchange

If you’ve never heard of it and never played, the basic gist of the game is as follows. Office management sets the rules in advance for budgeting and the overall rules of the game, because there can be different variations. Each person buys and wraps a gift, and the gift is usually something funny that no one would every rightfully buy on their own. Numbers are picked out of a hat to establish the order of the gift giving. The first person starts by choosing a present and unwrapping it so that everyone can see. The next player can choose to unwrap a different gift from the pool or steal a previous player’s gift! If your gift gets “stolen” you can then choose a new unwrapped gift or opt to steal someone else’s gift. The organizer can establish different rules at the beginning of the game such as limits on how many times a gift can be stolen or limits on how many times a participant can have a gift stolen. Some other house rules can include ones like “a present can only be stolen once per turn”, “three swaps and you’re out”, “three swaps and the gift is out”. The organisers can set your own house rules and also establish themes. Often the theme is gag gifts, but other white elephant gift exchange themes can be re-gifts, ornaments, books, candy, do-it-yourself crafts, etc. The best White Elephant gifts are funny or weird items; but there is never anything wrong with getting something nice.

Fun Ideas for White Elephant Gifts

There is a whole website dedicated to the White Elephant Gift Exchange: WhiteElephantRules.com. It helps you with ideas, rules, and a history of the game. They list 20 great White Elephant Gift Ideas, some of which are quite funny and will help you get the gist of the game. Here are 5 ideas from their list:

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