Every year, many offices will hold a gift exchange to coincide with the holiday season. Often, this is in the form of a secret Santa, or the straight giving of gifts to everyone. Why not spruce it up this year by holding a holiday themed white elephant gift exchange. The idea of this is to come up with silly, yet festive gifts that will be given and traded by members in the office. With a white elephant exchange, the more tacky or useless, the better! In your holiday themed white elephant exchange, consider the following items:
Dancing Santa. What’s more fun than a fat man dancing? Especially when it’s Jolly Old St. Nick. It’s a great white elephant gift because even if you choose to display this in your house, it’s only able to be displayed one month out of the year.
Christmas bedsheets. There is a great variety to choose from, with Santa, bells, angels, snowmen, and snowflakes. The most common type of winter themed bedsheet is made from flannel, which will keep you warm, but unfortunately, the picture will often get blurry easily because of the fabric. Although a sheet set isn’t an awful gift, what makes it perfect for a white elephant gift exchange is that you can only use it for a short time each year.
Socks with jingle bells. Socks are sure to spread holiday cheer, and socks with jingle bells serve as a great tracking device for the employee that is always walking around instead of sitting at their desk doing work. These socks are so irritating that most people will be tired of them long before the holiday season is over.
Tree decoration of Santa smashing into tree. First there were tree decorations of witches crashed into the tree or telephone poles, now Santa has wrecked his sleigh into trees. Once again, it’s a decoration that can only be displayed for a short time during the year. But this one has the added benefit that it’s a pain to set up in a tree, and when you take it down to store it for the year, it takes up some space.
Giant stocking. The novelty of a giant stocking wears off quickly when you figure out that it’s too large to really hang above the fireplace. It’s often to heavy to hang on the wall, unless you place the nail into a stud in the wall. And when you go to store it for next year, you’ve got to buy a plastic storage container to put it in to keep from having vermin take up residence in it.
A Holiday themed white elephant gift exchange is a terrific idea to spread some cheer this holiday season. The tieing of a white elephant gift exchange to a specific holiday or season adds to the useless nature of the items being exchanged and adds to the fun and inconvenience of the recipients of these gifts. This year, fill your office with white elephant gifts of a holiday theme and you’re sure to hear sleigh bells, kitschy recorded songs, and lots of laughter.
