The NB Family Tries White Elephant Exchange Gift

December 24, 2017

On December 20, 2017, me and my friends had our Christmas party at The Pyramid, IT Park, Cebu City. It was a night full of food, nonsense talks and smiles on our faces. That was indeed a wonderful one! Few of us came early at the venue and while waiting of the others, we also ordered the food. We ordered 3 orders of food set worth 1, 499.00 and 2 cripsy pata.

To really feel the spirit of Christmas we all agreed that each of us must have 1 gift minimum of 100.00 for exchanging gifts. The usual for exhanging gifts is, the person must have a manito/manita to whom he or she will give the gift during the party. The other way around is by codename. Since the group doesn't have available time to meet before the said date of the party, one of us suggested the rule of exchanging, The White Elephant.

So what is white elephant rule all about?According to www.whiteelephantrules.com

A White Elephant Gift Exchange is a popular Christmas event where people vie to walk away with the best present. It also goes by Yankee Swap, Dirty Santa, and a plethora of other names. The White Elephant game is played by a lot of different rulesets – some dead simple and others confusingly elaborate.

So here are the rules:

1. Each player brings one wrapped gift to contribute to a common pool

The gift exchange organizer should provide information on what type of gift people should bring.

- we all agreed anything that is minimum 100.00.

2. Players draw names to determine what order they will go in

Alternatively, everyone can draw from a hat, or have their order set by the organizer prior to the event.

3. Players sit in a circle or line where they can see the gift pile

To make things easier, everyone should sit in the order in which they will take their turns.

4. The first player selects a gift from the pool and opens it

Make sure everyone can see the gift!

5. The following players can choose to either pick an unwrapped gift from the pool or steal a previous player’s gift. Anyone who gets their gift stolen in this way can do the same – choose a new gift or steal from someone else.

To keep things moving along, there are a couple of limits on gift swapping:

A present can only be stolen once per turn, which means players who have a gift stolen from them have to wait to get it back.
After three swaps, the turn automatically comes to an end (otherwise things could drag on for a long time).
See “Popular Variations” below for other possible twists.

6. After all players have had a turn, the first player gets a chance to swap the gift he or she is holding for any other opened gift. Anyone who’s gift is stolen may steal from someone else (as long as that person hasn’t been stolen from yet). When someone declines to steal a gift, the game comes to an end.

I tried this for once only, on that day, and it very fun. Especially when someone started to steal gift of others. The gifts that were usually being stolen were the big ones, while those small, ugly wrapped and too obvious were the opposite. The most surprising part was the time when we opened all the gifts we got. So the big relevation for the biggest and most stolen gift was..... It was pitcher, surprise! Hahahhahahaha.

I recommend you to try this with your group of friends and family. Not recommended for big groups, like more than 30 members the party will take so long to end. Can't wait to share and comment below the fun and your experience about the rules! Happy holidays!