<p>Speaking of the lottery scratch-off, one year a new couple in the supper club had purchased a small gift certificate to a craft store as the regular Dirty santa gift (we usually buy small ornaments or other Christmas items under $10). Problem was, the wife had also gotten a $100 gift certificate for one of their D’s actual Xmas gift - guess which one got put into the Dirty santa package by DH? OK that was a funny moment.</p>
<p>I have never, ever heard of this before! I would ascribe that to it apparently being something of a WASPy tradition (sounds like it, at least), except I grew up among WASPs and no one did this, at least that I ever heard. The closest thing I ever saw to it was when I worked in a group of traders at a Wall St. bank, and they occasionally had tie-swap days, where you could force anyone to trade ties with you (and people wore absolutely hideous ties, or at least the experienced ones did).*</p>
<p>You learn something every day . . . </p>
<ul>
<li>Note that this game would have made less sense if there had been any women working in that area. There weren’t. I imagine the custom died out a few years later.</li>
</ul>
<p>I love the tie idea, JHS. Women could play the same game with cheap, gaudy jewelry items.</p>
<p>We call it Dirty Santa and we did it last year in our department at work. It was fun, but we all knew the rules going in, and were limited to $10 gifts.</p>
<p>Yankee Swaps are very common here and can be a lot of fun. It’s always lighthearted and done in good spirit. Our bunko group is having one Friday with ornaments, and we do have a max 3 steal rule.</p>
<p>We tried this last year at our large family Hannukah party. There are some extended family members and we usually draw one name from a hat and buy a gift for under $25, this is for the adults only. The kids tend to still get gifts from grandparents and aunts and uncles so they still rack up!</p>
<p>We played that a gift could not be stolen more than once and the men brought gifts for men and the women for women. It worked out ok, but we decided not to do it again. When you have people that range in age from 18 to 90, it is hard to come up with a great gift! My son decided to get a mix of different beers and that gift was the “one” to get. He thought if we did the exchange again he would buy lottery tickets. My question is, if a ticket was a big winner, would the buyer be entitled to any of the winning?</p>
<p>Yup, we play this too, in my tennis group at our Christmas social.</p>
<p>Best “white elephants”:</p>
<p>“The Dr. Ruth Board Game” (circa 1988?): everyone wanted this one, just to read the cards.</p>
<p>A Thighmaster, still in the box: everyone wanted to try it out, but no one wanted to take it home.</p>
<p>I haven’t personally seen this done with “real” gifts, but I think it’s a lot of fun with white elephant presents. The only disconcerting thing is when someone doesn’t get the “white elephant” part, and buys something nice. That’s when avarice can kick in over a $10 geegaw.</p>
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<p>We used to have this gift exchange thingy at work. Once, when our CEO unwrapped his mystery gift, everyone started to chuckle, then complete silence settled in. Our CEO was the only chubby person in the company, and the mystery gift was a Thighmaster in mint condition! That was our last company-wide White Elephant ;)</p>
<p>My friends had a Christmas-sock exchange party.</p>
<p>When I was on the elementary school Home and School board, we did the stealing thing. I don’t remember anyone’s feelings being hurt, because nothing was rejected after it was opened. What would happen would be, in our version, you did the “exchange” by picking up a still-wrapped gift, handing it to the owner of the coveted one, and taking what they had. There was a holiday doodad theme to the gifts, and a low price limit. It’s true that something would inevitably be the thing everyone wanted, but since much of the crowd liked cutsey stuff, I’d be stunned by what was considered steal-worthy.</p>
<p>JHS–definitely not a WASP thing in this instance. It was an ethnic white crowd–Mostly Italian, some Irish, some Polish. Being half WASP and half of Jewish heritage, I was probably the sole rep of both groups!</p>
<p>At a neighborhood yearly get-together, for a while we had the rejected gift exchange. It also used the stealing rule, too. Corny, but cute. My H actually had gotten an “electric tie rack” for an actual present (could anything be sillier) one year, so we brought that, thinking it’ll get a laugh. It turned out to be the thing people really wanted, and the couple who went home with it thought they really won the “lottery”. Go figure.</p>
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<p>I think it works if you know about it ahead of time, and the gift is a white elephant gift, i.e., something funny or random. It’s also better if the people involved know eachother well. Last year we ended up with a singing faux moose wall trophy (one of the most coveted gifts by the way). We ended up giving it to my sister as a joke housewarming gift (they had just moved into a new house) to hang in the guest room (so that H and I could enjoy it when we go visit! 
)</p>
<p>If you don’t like that game, do the story of the “right family” everyone stands in a circle as the story is read, when the word right or left is read you pass the gift in that direction, thus no hard feelings. We always do a theme, i.e. gift cards, ornaments, white elephant, golf, etc.</p>
<p>Heres the story:</p>
<p>Christmas was almost here, and Mother RIGHT was finishing the Christmas baking. Father RIGHT, Sue RIGHT, and Billy RIGHT returned from their last-minute Christmas errands. </p>
<p>“There is not much LEFT to be done,” said Father RIGHT as he came in to the kitchen. </p>
<p>“Did you leave the basket of food at church?” asked Mother RIGHT. I LEFT it RIGHT where you told me to," said Father RIGHT. “I’m glad my shopping is done,” said Billy RIGHT. “I don’t have any money LEFT.” </p>
<p>The hall telephone rang, and Susan RIGHT LEFT to answer it. She rushed back and told the family, “Aunt Tillie RIGHT LEFT a package for us RIGHT on Grandma RIGHT’s porch. I’ll go over there RIGHT away and get it,” she said as she LEFT in a rush. </p>
<p>Father RIGHT LEFT the kitchen and brought in the Christmas tree. By the time Susan RIGHT returned, Mother RIGHT, Father RIGHT, and Billy RIGHT had begun trimming the tree. The entire RIGHT family sang carols as they finished the decorating. Then they LEFT all the presents arranged under the tree and went to bed, hoping they had selected the RIGHT gifts for their family. </p>
<p>Now I hope you have the RIGHT present for yourself, because that’s all that’s LEFT to our story…except to wish you a Merry Christmas…isn’t that RIGHT???</p>
<p>The first time I was involved in this was many years ago when I was first eligible for the executive staff party at my gov’t agency. My D, now a college freshman, was little, and so I chose to take a stuffed Santa–the only gift suitable for a child–from my boss, whose kids were much older. I remember feeling a sense of shock throughout the room. I don’t think my boss minded, and still don’t understand why that might have been inappropriate given the jovial mood if the party, but I never would have considered doing that again!</p>
<p>I take it nobody here is a fan of The Office?</p>
<p>There’s an unbelievably awful/hysterically funny Christmas episode featuring a horrendously mean-spirited Yankee Swap session (imposed on what was supposed to be a regular Secret Santa event). </p>
<p>Personally, I agree that Yankee Swap, by any name, is ONLY fun/funny if everybody knows how it goes before it starts (meaning, even before the gifts are purchased).</p>
<p>jym626
Never really considered it stealing. There were exchange rules - had to decide before opening it if you wanted to exchange, some others exchange rules I don’t remember now. It was light and everyone understood the game, $$ limits, etc. Plus the attempt to be the one that ended up with the really odd white elephant from last year kind of made it less about getting the “good one”.</p>
<p>This is very interesting. My daughter got a handpainted boomerang as a gift from her religious friend. I am curious about the significance too.</p>
<p>singersmom-
As others have said, if the rules of this thing were explained either before gifts were purchased or even at the outset of the gift exchange, perhaps I would have felt differently. Without that, I was quite bothered by people just standing up and saying “I want XXXX” and going over and taking it. If it was not a mutual exchange, if the taking of the gift was not with the advance permission of the person with the item, IMO, that feels like stealing. Certainly it is taking something in plain sight, and with the other person’s knowledge, but it just feels yukky. Again, I guess these are traditions with which others are familiar. I was not, and was caught off guard. I anticipated a charming gift exchange, not people skulking around the room eyeing what they were going to take from someone else, and then taking it (especially when the other person wasn’t there). Is ther another word besides stealing that better describes this?</p>
<p>I wouldn’t describe it as stealing, which would usually be defined as taking something without the right to take it. Taking one of the gifts is part of the ‘game’ of this type of exchange. Whomever invited you to participate in this should definitely have explained it to you prior to the exchange.</p>
<p>Never saw this when we lived in New England. </p>
<p>Here in the Seattle suburbs, I’ve been invited to three parties this year that will feature this kind of exchange. Rules and $$ amounts are made available in advance. One features ONLY Christmas ornaments.</p>