White Elephant Gift Exchange

Last night we attended a Christmas party at Mark’s. One thing that Mark does well is plan functions and events, and last night was no exception. Lots of good food and plenty of wine. Neither Greg nor I are fans of wine, so we were thankful that there was also punch to be had.

The party also had a *White Elephant Gift Exchange. I was pretty proud of our gift that we gave. It included a bobble-head from a cereal box, a tacky gingerbread man ornament that we had received a few years ago at a different White Elephant Gift Exchange (don’t know why in the world we even kept the thing for this long), and best of all, a Tribute to Styper CD. I guess that is one way to get rid of unwanted items. I had Greg wrap the gift since he does such a great job with gift wrapping.

We had brought Adrianna to the party (with Mark’s permission first). She was so well-behaved. After awhile, one of Mark’s friends offered to hold her for me to give me a break. That was so nice. It is always great to go places that have ladies who either are or desire to be a grandma, because they always want to hold your baby for you. This lady, Pam, and her husband, were a really nice couple and I enjoyed talking with them. It was funny, because they started singing Zip-a-dee-doo-dah to Adrianna, which happens to be Adrianna’s favorite song. But I hadn’t told them this. Adrianna fell asleep in Pam’s arms. I think she liked Pam because Pam reminded me a little of Adrianna’s Grammy. 🙂

*White Elephant Gift Exchange Rules

1. Gifts can be bought if desired, but the best gifts are things you no longer need or never needed in the first place. The tackier the better.
2. Wrap the gift. Fancy wrapping is a good thing. You want to make your gift look desirable after all, even if the contents inside are not.
3. Each person brings one gift. All gifts go under the tree.
4. Each person receives a number. This determines in what order the gifts are to be chosen.
5. Number 1 picks a gift and unwraps it in front of everyone else.
6. Number 2 either steals number 1’s gift or picks a new one from the pile and unwraps it. If Number 2 takes #1’s gift, then #1 takes a new one from the pile and unwraps it.
7. Number 3 now has the option to take #1’s or #2’s gift or pick a new one from the pile to unwrap.
8. Whenever a person has a gift stolen from them, they can then either take another person’s gift or take a new one from the pile. For example: #6 takes #2’s gift. #2 takes #4’s gift. #4 takes #3’s gift. #3 decides to take a new one from the pile. The round ends and goes on to #7.
9. You cannot steal back a gift that has just been taken from you; you must wait at least one exchange and hope for another chance. For example, #7 takes #4’s gift. #4 can’t take it back, but they can take #6’s gift. #6 takes #5’s gift. #5 takes #4’s gift. Then #4 can take #7’s gift.
10. After a gift has been stolen 3 times, it’s permanent. It can no longer be stolen, as otherwise the game could go on and on indefinitely.
11. You must take home whatever you end up with unless you can find some poor sap to trade with you.