<p>The whole family is going to a party with a White Elephant Gift Exchange. We’ve each been told to bring something funny, that we own. For some reason, we are stumped when looking around the house. Too bad we can’t buy something, as the hot pink glitter Madonna with child would have been perfect.</p>
<p>Any ideas of what we should be looking for?</p>
<p>I had to look this up as I had never heard of it. What a great idea. Maybe we’ll do this for our New Years eve party.</p>
<p>I found this on line, in case it helps:</p>
<p>Some ideas for white elephant gifts include:
* Hideous jewelry
* Perfume or lotion with an unpleasant scent
* Cheap, ugly statues or other decorative knick knacks
* Weird art
* An obnoxious T-shirt or tie
* A poorly made, straight to video/DVD movie, preferably with the star being at the center of public ridicule (e.g., Britney Spears or Spice Girls movie)
* A book on a topic that is obscure and/or outdated
* A framed picture of your boss (for a work party – and only if the boss has a good sense of humor)</p>
<p>Some ideas I had:</p>
<ul>
<li>picture frames you no longer use, and take a goofy digital picture, print it up, and stick it in the frame. </li>
<li>one of your mugs or bowls, and fill it with some goodies from your house. Embellish it using your magic marker (e.g. at the bottom of the bowl write in cartoonish block letters, “hey, whose the hog that ate all the candy?!”).</li>
<li>one of those odd utensils you don’t know what it’s for and have never used.</li>
<li>some unattractive clothing you got for a gift from a relative (I have a few sweaters i wish I could send you…).</li>
</ul>
<p>(worse comes to worse, if my house search came up dry, I might even cheat by going to the dollar store or Walmart to find the most tacky gift I can find…all in the spirit of humor)</p>
<p>We often do this and some of the things have been really funny. One son filled a jar with water and added a little yellow food coloring. Another time one son found an old dried partial piece of fruit in his room (don’t ask) it was rather unidentifieable and everyone tried to guess what it was. We also have a baby blow up blue hippo that reappear over the years.</p>
<p>Some white elephant items can end up as true treasures for others. I have given things like an old fashion coffee maker, egg boiler, chicken rotisserie, temperature barbecue fork, silly alarm clock, hot dog roaster, ice cream maker, slush maker, and other kitchen gadgets that I just don;t use, but others found useful. We had a fun auction with them at a party.</p>
<p>For some neat ideas, go to Unclutter.com and look for their Unitasker Wednesday section. They have stuff like a beehive pizza oven, hot chocolate maker, usb watch dog.</p>
<p>wine, old family picture, old family christmas ornament.</p>
<p>We are doing one this year with my extended family, we are to spend 20-25. I got blue tooth earphone, car usb charger (ipod and iphone), scarves and a bangle. We were all each suppose to get our own, but I went out and did it for my own family.</p>
<p>I attend an annual party where the rule is that you MUST bring an item you have found in your home. I think the all time favorite has been the wedding album I brought. My DH had died and in his effects I found the album from a previous, short marriage that ended in divorce. It came back after the first year. The person who got it the next year keeps it on her coffee table as a conversation starter. Every year someone asks when it is coming back to the party.</p>
<p>Another all time great has been the bridesmaid’s complete outfit, dress, shoes, purse. It actually fit the guy who first “won” it.</p>
<p>The second rule is that you cannot leave behind the present you have won. The story may be just a legend but supposedly someone once brought car keys. I have seen a huge computer go out the door.</p>
<p>Too bad you don’t live near here. We have a house full of white elephants. We did the same kind of exchange. We have serving dishes, knick knacks, linens (think holiday tableclothes and placemats), and even clothes that we have received as gifts…that we NEVER have used. They are just tucked away. </p>
<p>The only thing you have to be careful of…try to remember WHO gave you the gifts. It won’t be a very Merry Christmas if you bring the hideous wine glasses Aunt Myra gave you to the exchange…IF Aunt Myra is sitting in the room!!</p>
<p>I was just at an exchange a while ago, and I gave a diet book along with some delicious dark chocolate candy. Other items given were: odd china knickknacks, sexy bridal shower gifts that no one had ever used (but kept), odd kitchen gadgets, ugly Christmas ornaments, odd or ugly souviners, a collection of owls figurines, and other misc. from basements, closets and garage sales.</p>
<p>The prize in my family’s white elephant every year is the rubber chicken.</p>
<p>Scented candles & Xmas ornaments were big at the last one I went to. There was also a bag of kazoos (!) and an adorable toy parrot that talked.</p>
<p>These all seem a little tame to me! 
My friends and I compete during our annual Christmas party to see who has the most outlandish W. E. (must be <$10)… we actually held 2008’s last night.</p>
<p>Here were the winners:</p>
<ol>
<li>A mailbox ^.^</li>
<li>A traffic cone, put in a box with a prep school scarf with the nametag of a girl we all know. (Don’t ask me how this kid got either of these o_o)</li>
<li>A complete set of Batman lingerie - nylons + gloves + black lace corset + bat ears. Woah. The guy tried it on and everything XDDD</li>
<li>The most enormous lamp I’ve ever seen, with a big, clawed, Victorian base - no one could fit their arms around it to pick it up. (This is the one I got !)</li>
<li>A dashboard Jesus (“With Gliding Action”) and the Complete Pharmacy Guide to Pills</li>
<li>A Brave Little Toaster sleeping bag, size .008</li>
<li>One of those raccoon-ball-electric toys, put in an old fridge box [Biggest present, smallest prize lol] We could hear it before the party even started – it was going crrrazy in there.</li>
</ol>
<p>We know how to throw a party. If anyone had brought scented candles, I think we would have laughed them out of the house lol.</p>
<p>silvervestersmom, I want to go to one of your parties, you sound like a very creative bunch!</p>
<p>OK, next year if we do this again I’ll try to get people to spice it up a little. This year many of them were “newbies” who had to be told what a White Elephant is! The definition was “something you have around the house already. Wrap it.”</p>
<p>Batman lingerie? :eek: :D</p>
<p>Edit: Tho to be fair, most of the people at this party were in their 70s, or above. So I think they were trying to avoid corrupting us younger folk. ;)</p>
<p>Gosh, I* love *the wedding album from the failed marriage and the complete bridesmaid’s outfit!!!</p>
<p>TheRedSmileyFace – I wish you could put a picture of the lamp on line…I loooove Victorian hideousness!</p>
<p>These are great! I don’t think we can match the batman ensemble or victorian lamp, but I am feeling inspired.<br>
I’d take one of the flying howling monkeys, but those are going in the kids stockings the next day. {sigh}.</p>
<p>I’d also like to take the singing reindeer head, but the kids would kill me if I gave it away.</p>
<p>So, I’m going to search for the geisha girl bottle opener, I know it’s somewhere in the house.</p>
<p>We took a large serving spoon with a flat bottomed wooden handle, glued an
old usb port on the bottom and gave it away as a “digital spoon”. This was a slight variation on the year we took a large wooden serving fork and glued an electric cord on the bottom and gifted it as an “electric fork”</p>
<p>To Novelisto-- it’s in my room now. It looks great. Although my mom says it’s the ugliest thing she’s ever seen.</p>
<p>Don’t think I can upload pics but to give you an idea: I’m 5’1. The lamp is 4’8. Half of that is the shuttered, beaded lampshade.</p>
<p>Word.</p>