Here in Arkansas, we would call a White Elephant party playing Dirty Santa. So if you’re from the south, you may not recognize it called the first, but know it as the latter and if you’re from the north, you’ve probably heard it called Yankee Swap. Also, if you’re a fan of The Office, you’ll remember the episode where they played this game and Pam referred to it as White Elephant. Regardless of what you call it, it’s a great way to have a fun Christmas time party that you’ll want to plan and host every year.
The rules of White Elephant are very simple. Each guest brings a wrapped gift. All the gifts are put in a pile. Numbers are drawn out of a hat to determine which guest gets to go first, second, third and so on. The guest that goes first selects a gift out of the pile and opens it. The second guest can either steal the gift that the first guest selected or pick one from the pile. In the event that the second guest decides to steal the first guest’s gift, then the first guest will choose another gift from the pile. The guest that is third can choose between the first and second guest’s gifts or the gift pile. This goes on until every guest has a gift.
To prepare for your party, aside from the appetizers and drinks, you’ll need to know how many guests are coming so you can make slips of paper with a number for each guest. Put the slips of paper in a hat, box or whatever you prefer so that they can be drawn after all your guests arrive. It’s a good idea to send out invitations asking your guests to R.S.V.P. so that you can do this ahead of time.
To plan an entertaining White Elephant party to remember, here are a few tips:
If you’re going to invite men and women to your party, have each guest bring a gift that is suitable to their gender or only bring gifts that would be suitable for either gender.
Make sure to tell your guests not to label their gift letting people know who the gift is from. Guessing who brought what gift is half the fun. This in itself will be entertaining for your guests.
Encourage your guests to bring “gag” gifts. They always make a White Elephant party a great hit. Some gifts have been known to make their way back to a White Elephant party every year.
Set a limit of a gift being “stolen” only 3 times. Also, a gift can only be stolen once during a turn. That means that if the person whose turn it is steals a gift from someone else, then the person who had their gift stolen has to pick a gift from the pile and cannot steal it back or steal someone else’s gift.
Last, but not least. Invite as many people as you can. You should have at least six, but the more you have the merrier!
