Odd Holiday Tradition

Parent Cafe
1

<p>I went to my investment group’s holiday party this evening. This was my first year in the group, and consequently my first party. We were all asked to bring an inexpensive (under $10) wrapped gift for the holiday gift swap. OK, great. After dinner we pass around a basket and each person takes a number (there were 11 of us). The person who drew #1 gets to pick a gift first, and so forth. Each person opens their gift, one at a time, and shows it to everyone. OK, it seemed normal enough. Well, after the 3rd or 4th person went (picked a gift), when it was the 5th person’s turn, she declared that she wanted the gift that person #1 got, and took it! So, according to this tradition, person #5 gets to take person #1’s gift, and person #1 has to pick a new gift. This continues until all 11 are selected (and 2 more people forced others to give up their gifts and select another!!)</p>

<p>Wait, I am not done! At the end, when all 11 gifts were opened, person #1 gets to pick whatever gift she wants of all the 11 gifts, and does a forced swap with whoever’s gift she wants! She slowly walked around the room looking at all the gifts, and stopped in front of me and the person next to me. I was uncomfortable, because I kinda liked the set of padded satin hangers that I got. Fortunately for me, she wanted the gift of the person next to me, who happened to be away from the table on a phonecall. When she retuned (she is also a new group member and this was her first party) she discovered that her gift had been taken and the other left in its place!! </p>

<p>Has anyone ever heard of the boomerang gift giving thing?? You get to declare that you want someone elses gift and they are forced to give it up?? Am I missing something about the spirit of the season here?? This seemed awfully mean-spirited. Am I alone here?? Is this a “normal” way to do a holiday gift theft…er… I mean swap? Does anyone else have any weird holiday traditions to share?</p>

2

<p>My extended family plays that game all the time at parties. I think it’s a blast and not particularly mean-spirited.</p>

3

<p>It’s called a Yankee Swap, Jym, and is really quite common! I actually just got an invitation today for my summer job’s holiday party that has the same set-up. Here’s their description of it:</p>

<p>

I don’t think it’s mean-spirited. All the gifts are cheap, so people are just having a little fun with it. The best part is to watch a really popular gift switch hands every turn. But, really, the gifts are small and random, so it doesn’t really matter who gets what. It’s not as if someone is claiming a gift that was carefully chosen for a specific individual, and anyone doing the swap can go out and buy any of the items on their own easily for under $10 if they’re really attached to the item and it gets traded/taken from them.</p>

<p>edit: Apparently it’s also called a White Elephant Gift Exchange: [White</a> elephant gift exchange - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yankee_swap]White”>White elephant gift exchange - Wikipedia)</p>

4

<p>We do this every year at work, and sometimes among family and friends. Our rule is that after a gift is “stolen” twice, it’s out of play (so the third person holding a particular item is its final owner). That makes it a little less random.</p>

5

<p>Yep, we do this at holiday parties with couples and also at a ladies ornament exhange. I’m surprised that no one explained the ‘rules’ before you started the exchange.</p>

<p>We use the same rules as mootmom, and also, if your gift is stolen on the last pick, you can have the chance to steal. </p>

<p>BTW, there always seems to be one truly fabulous gift, and one or two that are kind of ugly. Kind of a life lesson there- it ain’t always fair…</p>

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<p>Oh, if you are collecting odd holiday traditions: On Christmas Eve we still put carrots on the roof for the reindeer…</p>

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<p>I liked “Secret Santa” at one of my workplaces. You draw a name from a hat, and the name you draw is the person for whom you leave 5 little surprise gifts of $1. apiece daily around their desk, during the week leading up to Friday when work closed. On Friday there’s a gathering where everyone reveals who has been their “secret santa” and then you give one nice gift with a limit of $10. </p>

<p>For $15 apiece, everyone could participate and it was lots of happy chatter and friendship.</p>

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<p>We always do the same thing at our holiday party, except that the gifts are not opened – so the person doing the swapping doesn’t really know what they are getting. People want to swap because of what they guess the gift might be, based on the packaging - does it look like a book? a box of candy? candles? – but then again, sometimes they are quite surprised in the end.</p>

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<p>Yeah Karen Colleges, if they’d explained it at the outset, I wouldn’t have been so caught off guard when the “givith” became the “taketh away” . And in your version, Karen Colleges, if the person who last had their gift stolen gets to steal, when does it end? Or are you saying that the last person to steal is the person who #1 stole from. I am glad you guys don’t think this is mean spirited- it just caught me totally off guard, and stealing gifts when you give them just strikes me as very odd. Left a weird feeling, but again probably b/c I was clueless and surprised when they started taking each others gifts! I guess I don’t see the “fun” in stealing a gift from someone. </p>

<p>In this version, the person who wanted to steal didnt get to open one and THEN decide to keep or steal, they had to decide at the outset of their turn, and the “victim” of the theft got to pick again. Small consolation, I guess. I would call it a “swap” if it was mutual trading of a gift. This version was stealing the persons gift, whether they liked it or not. And yes, Karen Colleges, there were some “nicer” gifts, and some that were clearly someone “re-gifting” a clunker. One was this weird oil ornament looking lamp thing. I won’t be surprised if it reappears in next years gift-theft game!</p>

<p>Mootie, I like your version a little better-- that if it is stolen twice, its out of play.</p>

<p>p3t- Yes, I like the Secret Santa thing (though it wouldnt work as a “secret” in our little office :slight_smile: )- gut the gifts, though small, are not snatched away, and are usually thoughtful (candy, something from the dollar store,etc)-- not a gag gift.</p>

<p>I guess people’s customs make sense to them just b/c they do it, and don’t question it. It frames our basis for what is “normal”. I remember in grad school a professor gave an example (made it up). It went something like this:</p>

<p>Student to Supervisor: “I interviewed this patient today and I am really worried about her. She has an obsessive ritual-- she makes blueberry pancakes and stacks them in the attic!”</p>

<p>Supervisor to student: “What’s wrong with that? My grandmother does that all the tiime.”</p>

<p>Odd to some, normal to others. But I do like the carrots on the roof thing, Karen colleges!</p>

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<p>We do this, only not so many swaps as some describe. You get a number, you get to pick an unwrapped gift or take an opened gift. If you loose your gift you get another unwrapped gift but then can’t swap. You any get one chance to “steal” a gift, but each time you unwrap a gift, it can then be taken by one of the next “numbers.” I like the idea of number one getting to go back and swap, since the way we play, the first one gets no “steals.”</p>

<p>If you know whats coming, its a fun game, and can warm up a room, esp one of coworkers.</p>

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<p>jym626 - I understand your discomfort as well. I am part of a group that did this for a few years and there were sometimes hurt feelings. Mostly because it became obvious which gifts were coveted and which were not…the gift giver of the “traded” gift sometimes felt hurt. We decided it was not as “fun” for everyone as it could be , so now we sit in a circle and hold the gift we brought. Then we read a Christmas story that includes the words “right” and “left” frequently. As the words are said the gifts get passed that direction until the end. Everybody keeps the gift they were holding at the end of the story. It seems to be preferred to the old way and no hurt feelings!</p>

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<p>I’ve only done this once at a friends house and I didn’t like it either. There were clearly favored things and unwanted things and I was uncomfortable with it.</p>

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<p>It’s only fun when everyone understands the game! We do it at work also, and it’s very funny when everyone knows what will happen. Otherwise, I can definitely see how it can hurt people’s feelings. Happy holidays, all! And may the coming month with your child(ren)/adult(s) be filled with everything you want it to be.</p>

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<p>My book group does this every year at Christmas and we find it a lot of fun, and tons of laughs. We have all known each other for 15+ years, though, so that may make a difference. We’re friends first and group members second. No hurt feelings and the funny thing is that there is one ‘gift’ that has be making an appearance in the exchange for about 5 years now! It’s become a tradition to see who gets it each year. :)</p>

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<p>My family does that every year, too - its quite entertaining :D</p>

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<p>Our church group used to do this and there was a traditional “white elephant” really strange glass sculpture that was brought each year. The trick was to see who would end up with it to bring the next year.</p>

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<p>Sorry in advance if I accidentally offend anyone, but I find church-sanctioned stealing… kinda peculiar.</p>

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<p>Oh, I love the white elephant gift exchange at h’s work. He’s a teacher, so there are a lot of “World’s Greatest Teacher” coffee mugs exchanged! It’s practically a contact sport, the trading gets so furious. </p>

<p>We do put limits: No more than two steals. No. 1 gets to pick whatever he/she wants as long as it hasn’t been stolen twice already, and the person whose gift is taken gets the remaining item from under the tree.</p>

<p>Want to bring a popular gift? Add a lottery scratch-off to something!</p>

19

<p>We do a variation on this with our bunco group twice a year. After the first round, all the winners pick wrapped gifts. Next round the winners can pick a wrapped gift or steal an already unwrapped gift. This continues until everyone has opened something. At the end of the evening, the three people that have the most buncos, highest score, lowest score get to choose from all the gifts and these can not be restolen. That is, whatever the person with the most bunco’s chooses, she gets to keep and the person with the highest score gets to keep her gift and same with the lowest score person. After they are done, that’s it- no more swapping. Sometimes there will be a very popular gift and you know that you might have it for a round or two but you probably won’t go home with it. Fortunately, we’re all pretty good shoppers so it’s rare that there is a clunker gift.</p>

<p>I have also done it the way it was originally described with a limit of three steals per item. I agree that knowing the rules at the outset would make a huge difference in how the stealing was perceived.</p>

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<p>We call it Dirty Santa. Our supper club has another tradition (best played with a group of friends you know well), at our January dinner we exchange “Willie gifts”. A “willy” is something that you were given for Christmas (occasionally we cheat and buy a willy) that you would never in a million years want, need or use - the more preposterous or unidentifiable, the better. We wrap these in newspaper, or recycled, crumpled Christmas wrap. this has been going on for years, and there are a couple of knick-knacks that resurface every year - as in Alwaysamom’s book group.</p>