White Elephant Christmas party.

[_RaT_]

My BIL's family does this and were thinking of starting one up ourselves.

Anybody else do this ?

From the people I have talked to, seems everybody does theirs a little different.

I'm thinking in order for this to play out correctly in my family, were going to need some 'posted' rules.

We do this each year with neighbors. We bring a white elephant and a halfway decent gift. Its a total crack up. This year our white elephant was a very fancy cylindrical box that you give away a bottle of very nice wine in. We took that, rolled up Jeff Foxworthy's "you might be a Redneck if" slipped in a bottle of bottled water into the center of that, wrapped that in some fancy tissue and put that in a fancy bag. Ours was the first picked. You pick numbers as to who selects first. The girl that got ours was the exact opposite of Jeff Foxworthy and that's what made it so funny. We laughed pretty hard, I'm sure she was trying hard to figure out who he was.

You might be a redneck if; you use a rag as a gas cap.....

 

[dooleysm]

I always take something that I want, that way, worst case, I can steal my own gift back if there's nothing good. I've ended up with my gift twice. Once was a selection of wine/beer/liquor. This year I got back the ratchet straps and bungee cords I brought. Works out really well!

 

[RobJ]

Rob, I marked in red the part of the post that I thought was hysterical. Really made me laugh and actually i thought of a few of my family members that that bit of advice would apply to

Oh Rox I could go on. Christmas can get interesting around here on BOTH sides of my family. Good and the bad, sort of why I've been trying to promote the draw name single gift concept(but say $50 to $100 MINIMUN!!). To me its just easier to shop for 1 than 25. But I've also tried to ban gifting to anyone over 21...college kids need some stuff.

But I won't tell which side this came from but it's 100% true I'm sad to say. And these gifts were not to me...just in general. And there is always one that goes overboard.

One side use to own a small gift store, left over, some damage stuff is still in a small warehouse...MErry christmas with that stuff!
One year a set of fan belts as a gift...case of oil the previous year (not all that bad IMO)
How about a flashlight and battery gift...but batteries removed.
Bath and beauty gift packages...cut down the middle, half to mom and half to daughter.
HONEST...same as above but split 3 ways.
Another simular to above, 3 items removed from package and wrapped separately and given to same person...going for quantity.
giver gives a socket set, nice, receiver says already has one, giver takes it back and says they'll keep it. Receiver is skunked...not even something to return!
A real nice Pro Bass Shops $20 gift card...right next to the givers house, 40 miles from the receiver!
Another flashlight, no batteries, no package either. Just flashlight in tissue.
A wrapped money tree!! This is NOT deep east Texas familys.
Scratch off Lotto games. Ok they had NOT been scratched off.
TomToms for all the men....the overboard person. Nice but I don't need or want a TomTom.
Uhhh NO Gift! Picture 8 people in the room get a gift, number 9 does not...Oops.
One person does do all their Christmas shopping at the dollar store. Here I get 10 pieces of junk instead of 1!! WooHoo!
This year we got.... "A donation has been made in your name" thing(no amount of the donation BTW). Maybe not such a bad thing, but now we are on their mailing list, they have our phone number, and you know $5 buys like 10,000 meals somewhere! Just give me a heads up next year and I'll be glad to do the same. At least tell me how much!!! I can't even get a tax deduction...but the giver does! Of course this person got real gifts from everyone else. Maybe next year I'll tell them I donated in his name to my Church! Ya know a slient donation.

I guess our family is about as dysfunctional as the next. Boy it gets worse if you include my BIL's family.

Yep I'm 49 and all for Christmas without the gifts. Why White Elephants are for fun only!

 

[RobJ]

The first year that we did this, I got a hammock. I have no desire to sit in a hammock and I'm sure not going to use it for a nap. I re-gifted it the following year, and everyone knew it. Called me out on it too.

Eddie

IMO, you know how to play it Eddie! If you are really good you'll only unwrap the end to see what it is, this way you don't have to rewrap the thing!