Hellobee Boards

We usually have three different white elephant exchanges
1. family - something new with a price tag of 20.00
2. work - something new with a price tag of 25.00 no gag gifts , no gift cards
3. friends - something new with a price tag of 20.00 gag gifts allowed.

@banana: Yes. Everywhere Ive read about white elephant it tends to be the way you guys participated. Something from home, something funny and so on. So I think the rules need to be stated when wanting something different. I dont blame you!

It's always been a new item that you wouldn't mind receiving as a gift, and depending on the environment (work vs friends/family), gag gifts are allowed.

I think a true White Elephant exchange is supposed to be gag gifts. My family does a gift exchange using the same system of drawing numbers/picking gifts/stealing, but they have to be good and there's a set price. If I thought my gift was sub-par, I'd probably just pick it for myself (but if you've already chosen there's nothing you can do!).

@banana: that's the only way I've played it - with gag gifts. That really sucks that they did normal gifts!

It varies by group!

We only do a WE gift exchange with my mom's side of the family and we do both nice and silly gifts. There are usually some gift cards thrown in there in $5-$20 increments, cash, coffee, etc.. But silly gifts like regifted things (last year we gifted a redbox DVD that DH never returned haha!!) are common too..

Usually when I see invites it will say bring a silly gift, or else nothing at all and then I would assume it's decent gifts.

@banana: The specific rules of a Yankee Swap vary depending on the people, but the basic gist is that everyone buys a gift, and then you all get a number and you go in order starting from 1. You can either choose to open a new gift or steal a previous gift. If your gift gets stolen, you get to open a new gift. I've never heard of a Yankee Swap being joke gifts though, although you could definitely do that if people specified that ahead of time.

My family used to do white elephant every year! It was so much fun! We usually did normal gifts with a $10 or $20 limit and gag gifts were allowed (and definitely given!).

Try not to feel bad. The game varies so much depending on who's playing is and there's nothing you can do about it now anyway. I'm sure nobody's even thinking about it anymore.

I've only done it at work. Gag gifts are encouraged, we play it like you do. Some people bring serious gifts, most do not.

@Adira: @banana: I've heard it called Dirty Santa too.