I Love White Elephants!!!

If I haven’t already shared with you, I LOVE white elephant gift exchanges. In a lot of ways, they’re more fun than the real thing. Through the years, I’ve found some wonderful (read: horrible) gifts—ones that live on through their legends in our family or circle of friends. In fact, my story about the cardboard cut-out of Elvis from a white elephant gift exchange is my favorite contribution to A Scrapbook of Christmas Firsts. If you like The King, this story is a must read!

Some other white elephant favorites include:
The actual ceramic white elephant I found at Canton, 300-acre flea market between Dallas and Tyler.
A pink flamingo stuffed animal (we poke major fun at pink flamingo aficionados of the world)
Redneck gifts always bring a smile (the redneck woman’s coozie, camo with pink fuzzy fringe OR the redneck briefcase—men’s boxers stapled to a wooden handle)

What’s your favorite white elephant story? Please share. I could use the laugh!

The Head

Every group I have ever heard of that does an annual White Elephant Gift Exchange always has at least one item that keeps circulating. Our Sunday school class was no exception. For a while it was a pair of very large ceramic birds. There was a bit of a debate over whether they were peacocks or fancy pheasants. They mysteriously disappeared. Someone's garage sale perhaps?

Undaunted, our class quickly found a replacement--The Head. It showed up one Christmas unexpectedly and sent its recipient jumping up and tossing the package across the room. The Head was made of white styrofoam and had been used for someone's hairstyling course at the local beauty school. Over the years it returned with various additions: sunglasses, moustache, hats, etc. One year someone even gave it a new hairstyle.

The Head eventually vanished although I don't imagine it happened at a garage sale. Tales of The Head still abound and I'm sure whenever anyone sees a box about that same size in the pile of White Elephant Gifts, there's a niggle of anticipation. Has The Head returned?

I have no white elephant

Yes, tis true, I have no white elephant story.
Oh, I am a bit green with envy reading here about the fun my co-authors are having with white elephant gift exchanges.
It seems to be most fun with a big group involved, like say 20 people.
As I have mentioned before, at Christmas our celebrating together group is 4 people, my husband and I and our 2 adult sons.
The only white elephant I purchased was at a church "white elephant sale", where I bought a tiny cactus for 25 cents, when I was 8 years old. That cactus is thriving at my parents' house and has flowers several times a year. But it can NOT be moved, it will bite someone, with its spines, so it is not suitable for a gift exchange.
I hope you all get inspired to start this funny gift exchange with your own families.

White Elephant? by Brenda Nixon

"What!?" she exclaimed with a broad grin.

The circle of friends roared with laughter. I nearly fell over in my chair. Someone else was slapping me on the back as she hooted and hollered in delight.

It was that pesky white elephant gift we'd been passing around for years! The item itself wasn't as funny as the fact that the stupid thing kept popping up each Christmas at our annual White Elephant gift exchange. From one year to the next, I couldn't remember who was bestowed the honor of taking home the offensive possession but, each year we all circled our chairs at a new party and hoped we were not the one "blessed" with it.

And the one who brought it tried to disguise it with elaborate wrapping that'd make everyone one else want to choose it from the pile of glittering gifts under the tree. It became an art to camouflage it for the next victim.

Odd isn't it? Something that repelled us actually brought us together.


Brenda Nixon, www.BrendaNixon.com
Co-author, A Scrapbook of Christmas Firsts

White Elephant Gift Exchange - By Trish Berg

We have a white elephant gift exchange story that we will never forget. It involves a bronze bust of Buddha....need I say more?

When Mike and I were first married, 2 of my distant cousins flew in from New York City to attend the wedding here in rural Ohio. My 2 cousins, John and Joe, live a very different life than we do. They grew up in Queens, and both had successful careers in New York City.

Definitely a city way of life, very urban and sophisticated trendy and hip.

So when they went shoppingfor our wedding gift, I am sure they wanted to get us something that represented their unique style. Well, that they did.

On the night before our wedding, after our rehearsal dinner, they came home with me and handed me their wedding gift to open. When I pulled out this solid bronze bust of Buddha, I was not quite sure what to say. It overwhelmed me in many ways.

Most of all I had no idea what I was going to do with it.

The thought was sweet, and I know they probably spent a pretty penny on the thing. But it was just not us. So we stored it in our attic, and Mike used it to air dry his baseball caps after he washed them.

And when our extended family decided to have white elephant Christmas gift exchanges, well, we knew just what to do with our bust of Buddha.

Yep, it became the white elephant gift with the best story. It rotated from year to year, whoever had won it the previous year, wrapped it up and brought it the next year. What a hoot.

But alas, our beloved bronze bust of Buddha is gone. It was gifted to my sister-in-law's husband, and when they divorced, we did not win custody.

Oh well....not more hat drying for us.

But he lives on in our memories....

Secret/Surprise Gift

Wilson Family White Elephant Gift Exchange

Though we don’t have a huge family, we all do get together each Christmas. A couple of years ago, in an effort to cut down on costs, we started drawing names for gifts. Since we get “only” one big gift during the extended family get-together, we also decided to incorporate a white elephant gift exchange. The rules were simple: Nothing over $10; the sillier and more embarrassing the gift, the better.

As though all the crazies came out of the woodwork, we laughed ‘til we cried as we opened such silly items as a stuffed pink flamingo, a wooden sign that read, “This toilet paper roll is not going to change itself” and a redneck briefcase (actually a pair of tighty-whiteys with a wooden handle attached across the top.

The best part: Not having to make happy faces when receiving yet another sweater we didn’t need in a color we didn’t like. The kids really got into it, too—“stealing” what they considered to be the best gifts.

If you’ve never participated in a White Elephant Gift Exchange, the rules are as follows:
1. Set a price limit. Stay within it. (Wow, I’m a poet, and I know it.)
2. Wrap gifts to look nice—not giving the slightest hint as to the hideousness that lies beneath.
3. Have everyone in the exchange draw numbers—up to the number of people total.
4. The person who picks #1 goes first. He or she selects a gift from among all of the white elephants and unwraps it.
5. #2 gets to steal #1’s gift or choose a new gift. If #2 steals #1’s gift, #1 gets to select and unwrap another gift.
6. The game continues like this until all gifts have been selected.
7. Most games limit the number of steals to 3 total. Once a gift has been stolen three times, it’s “frozen” and belongs to the last person who stole it.
8. No under-the-table trades or deals!

I wrote out my favorite White Elephant Gift Exchange Story in A Scrapbook of Christmas Firsts. Check it out, especially all you Elvis fans!!!

Hint: Shop flea markets and garage sales for great white elephant finds!