<p>I am planning a (surprise) birthday party for my daughter, who is turning 16.</p>
<p>One of the activities I have planned is a Yankee Swap. I am in the process of collecting some unusual items which reflect my daughter’s interests.</p>
<p>Whenever I have participated in a Yankee Swap, each person has had single turn where s/he opens a present and then has the opportunity to swap it with a present already open.</p>
<p>Now I have come across this variant, which sounds more fun to me:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Anyone have experience with this? I like the idea of lots of swapping going on.</p>
<p>(For those following my posts, I have decided to go ahead with the plan to decorate gingerbread houses and will be furiously baking the pieces in the next week or so. I have found friends willing to help me build them and store them until the party.)</p>
<p>fendrock, we did this every year for years at my “Yankee” church back East. It was generally successful and a lot of fun. Two things help: the participants all have a sense of humor and the items are all relatively similar in terms of cost and seriousness. If you have one nicer item for instance, everyone steals it and the party is more lively but if someone is too serious about it feelings can get hurt.<br>
Some people play it where you can only steal something so many times…we never did that. Basically if you had the last number you could take anything anyone else had or the last unwrapped gift.</p>
<p>I have made a good effort to spend the same on each item – I have things like a brain shaped jello mold, stuffed armadillo, a DVD - “Best of Bulgarian Animation,” chia pet Christmas tree, etc.</p>
<p>I belong to a women’s group and we do this at the holidays. It’s part of the fun to see who can find the most original/best item (not supposed to spend more than $15). Last year it was my gift that was “stolen” most often so I felt pretty good about that. </p>
<p>I think this is a great idea for your D’s party, along with the gingerbread houses that will really get everyone involved.</p>
<p>Thanks FallGirl, $15 is what I am trying to spend on each item - can you believe I even managed to get a copy of Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking for that price??</p>
<p>We did this as a white elephant exchange at our church for a number of years. There was the one really old awful large, orange clown glass sculpture white elephant that was brought back each year.It became part of the game to see who went home with it. Sometimes folks stole it to see if they could be the one with it. Unfortunately it went home with us the year it stopped. Not sure why it stopped but it did. We were left with the true white elephant. My husband never wanted to part with it though.</p>
<p>It was a a metal angel “wall decor” as they call it from Pier 1. They are showing it on their website again this year. I don’t know if it would appeal so much to the teens, but the women loved it.</p>
<p>My book club does this at Christmas as our holiday exchange. We each bring a wrapped gift. We have done it a couple of different ways. Often we buy a new gift in the $15 range. Other years we have done a white elephant. One year we did a bring the strangest holiday gift you have received that is still sitting in your closet.
We do it like you stated in post 1 but we limit the stealing to 2 times per item.</p>
<p>My H’s group at work does a gift exchange like that at their Xmas lunch. One year someone re-gifted a clock he and his wife had received as a wedding gift but he accidentally left the card inside. He got a huge amount of kidding about it and now there is a reference to it in the annual invitation: “Something someone would give as a wedding gift… or DID get as a wedding gift!”</p>
<p>I attend a couple of these parties every year. One gift that keeps returning is a complete bridesmaid’s outfit…shoes, purse and dress. The first year it appeared, it actually fit the man who won it. Now it’s a tradition that it comes back.</p>
<p>Another well received white elephant was a 1950’s wedding album. The couple had been divorced many years prior, they were not in contact and the groom (who kept the allum) had died. It was traded for a few years but the person who last “won” the album now keeps it on her coffee table.</p>
<p>We used to do this with only one type of gift - socks. Statistically we always ended up with a nice blend of very cute and very hideous ones to keep the exchange interesting. We had to set a limit on the number of times a certain gift could be “stolen”.</p>
<p>We do this with my extended family each Christmas. A gift can only be “stolen” twice and then is retired. Since there are several married couples that participate and a few mother/daughteror son combinations, there is usually some serious strategizing.</p>
<p>I did this with my bible study girls once. But I was the only one who “stole” something. Must be something in a commandment about “stealing” that held everyone off. ha!</p>
<p>silvestersmom…for some reason that just cracks me up. I can’t imagine keeping a wedding album of two people you don’t even know on your coffee table. Even funnier than my inlaws who have a pic of my wedding in their house even though they did not attend (and weren’t invited).</p>
Statistically we always ended up with a nice blend of very cute and very hideous ones to keep the exchange interesting. We had to set a limit on the number of times a certain gift could be “stolen”.</p>