Liven up your next office Christmas party with a competitive White Elephant game!
The concept is simple and the preparation is easy, but once the game gets rolling, you will see your colleague's true competitive colors! There are essentially two different ways to play the White Elephant game, with the difference revolving around the types of gifts. The classic version has participants bringing in gag gifts to play with, while the newer version has participants bringing in a normal gift that is priced at a certain monetary amount. We will be discussing the newer version today.
Before the day of the office Christmas party, determine a monetary maximum for how much the White Elephant gifts that will be brought in should cost. Since each participant is responsible for bringing in a gift, be extremely conscious of not choosing a monetary amount that will be too expensive for many colleagues. If you are working in an office where the salary range is across the board, choose a lower amount like $10 or $15. Once that is decided, each person who wishes to participate will bring in a wrapped gift. The key word is "wrapped." The White Elephant game will not work as well if the gifts are unwrapped.
All of the participants will sit in a circle and put their wrapped gifts in a pile in the middle of the circle. Depending on how many participants there are, make small slips of paper numbered from 1 to the number of participants. Have each participant pull a number. Once all the numbers have been pulled, the fun will begin. The person who has pulled the number 1 chooses a gift from the pile first. Once he has chosen a gift, he will go back to his seat and unwrap the gift in front of everybody. The person who has pulled the number 2 has a decision to make. Either she can "steal" the unwrapped gift from the number 1 person or she can go to the pile and choose a new wrapped gift. If she decides to "steal" the gift, the number 1 person will then go to the pile and choose a new gift and unwrap it. If she decides not to "steal" the gift, she simply will choose a new gift from the pile and unwrap it. Each person thereafter has that same decision to make. Either they can "steal" a gift from one of the previous numbered persons or they can choose a new gift from the pile. However, one very important rule is that a single gift can only be "stolen" (or change hands) three times in the game. The third person to "steal" the gift keeps it for the remainder of the game and cannot have the gift stolen from him again. This will prevent one single great gift from constantly being passed around. Once the last numbered person has either stolen or chosen the last gift from the pile, the game is over and everybody now holds in their hand their White Elephant gift.
