Courtesy Pixabay
Ah, yes, kids. It’s once again the time of year to clean out your closet, go to the dollar store, throw whatever item into a gift bag, and participate in that holiday tradition of co-workers and large families everywhere: the White Elephant or Pirate Christmas Gift Exchange Game.
We’ve done it for years, haven’t we? It’s time for the office party or the big family get-together. We bring an unmarked gift, gender-friendly, and put them under the tree if there is one. Then whoever is in charge of the game, makes a stack of corresponding numbers, from which the participants draw a number. Then the fun starts.
The first person gets up, grabs a good-looking or interesting present, opens it, and tries to hang onto whatever they drew…IF they actually like it. If not, they work to palm it off on someone else. Or if they really like it, others in the herd notice and take the gift away, sometimes. The present can go around three times until it is declared ‘dead and done’. And so on. Sometimes, depending upon the size of the group, this can take an hour…or two.
“Good” gifts for such an exchange can be anything from movie tickets, boxes of candy, wine/liquor, an all-purpose flashlight that floats, candles, most anything that people generally like. “Bad” gifts are something else entirely. For instance, there was this alligator head that appeared one year at a radio station Christmas party. That nasty thing showed annually for the next seven years. We don’t know what happened to it. Hopefully, it went into the trash. And then there was the year that Tex Phillips brought a DVD of ‘Brokeback Mountain’ to exchange. Somehow I ended up with it. I think I donated it to charity or something.
So, what are your feelings regarding the White Elephant/Pirate Christmas Gift Exchange Game? Do you enjoy it? Or, are you like many others, who are simply tired of buying gifts by now, and don’t want to go to the dollar store to purchase one more? What should the dollar limit be? What do you consider to be both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ gifts to give or receive? Should the gifts be gag gifts, or not?
Or…would you all rather go in together and buy socks for the local homeless shelter, sponsor a needy family, or give to the local animal rescue programs?
As I await your answers, I’m going to go and rummage around in the back closet. There could be a candle that still has an evergreen odor left to it…or maybe ‘Brokeback Mountain’.
