How to Throw a White Elephant Gift Exchange

A white elephant gift exchange, also known as a Yankee Swap or Dirty Santa is a popular game at Christmas parties. As with most Christmas parties, each guest comes with a gift and leaves with a gift--but it's what happens in between that sets the white elephant exchange apart from other parties.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Party invitations
• Numbered papers
• Gifts

How to Throw a White Elephant Gift Exchange

1. Send out party invitations to all of the people on your guest list. Specify that everyone should bring a wrapped gift to the party for a white elephant gift exchange, and include any additional rules for the exchange, say a price limit or a stipulation that all gifts must be used items.

2. As guests arrive, have them deposit their gift on a table.

3. Then, pass around a hat with numbered pieces of paper (one number for each gift), and have each guest draw a number.

4. The person who draws "1" gets first pick from the pile, and opens her gift for everyone to see.

5. Then it's the turn of the person who drew "2." He can choose to steal the first person's gift or pick another gift from the pile, and open it. If the second person chooses to steal the first persons gift, the first person gets to choose another gift from the pile.

6. The person who drew "3" goes next, and must choose between stealing one of the first two gifts or choosing a new gift from the pile.

7. The game continues in this manner until everyone has a gift.

Tips & Warnings

• For a fun twist, leave all of the presents wrapped until the exchange is complete. Then, have everyone open their presents at once.
• Request that gifts not include To/From tags. Then see if everyone can guess who brought each gift.

[AllanaBaroni]

on 1/25/2008 Such a great idea! We do this all the time with friends and family, its a great way to celebrate the holidays with friends and in-laws and not have the pressure on everyone to buy presents for each individual person...also great for work events. Enjoy!

[AlinaBradford]

on 1/15/2008 Yay! I've been looking for the rules to this party!

[alexiapetrakos]

on 1/2/2008 My group of friends does this every year - missed it this year but it's always a blast. Since I'm married, we do one "good" present and one really awful one ;).

[alexiapetrakos]

on 1/2/2008 My group of friends does this every year - missed it this year but it's always a blast. Since I'm married, we do one "good" present and one really awful one ;).

[showpup]

on 11/29/2007 We do this every year. We also add the rule that the first person can steal any of the gifts or keep the one they have. ;-) It pays to be number one. LOL