Talk:White elephant gift exchange

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Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on January 2, 2007. The result of the discussion was keep.

[edit] Dead Gifts

If a gift is stolen three times, it will have had four owners:

  1. Original Owner
  2. Thief #1
  3. Thief #2
  4. Thief #3
  5. Thief #4

I have changed the wording about dead gifts back to "four owners" for this reason.

I should also add that if the way you play the game differs from what's on the page, add your rules as a variation, rather than deleting the existing rules. This game is played in several different ways, and we need to acknowledge that.

Groucho 13:13, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Origins

"The name "white elephant" loosely refers to an old tradition of giving gift items consisting of old trinkets, knicknacks, or unwanted gifts from previous years (also known as "regifting"). It's said to have originated when the King of France, in observance of an onerous tradition of lavish gift-giving, unloaded a rather inconvenient, ailing pet (a white elephant) on the King of England. The dilemma this gift imposed is that the recipient had to fulfill tradition and honor the gift (keeping it alive) despite the tremendous inconvenience and expense it caused. Therefore, a traditional white elephant gift exchange involves ridiculous, often inconvenient gifts that nobody really wants."

Is this correct? I read a different story in the idioms section of the answers.com white elephant article. It seems a bit more likely.

Cableray 17:34, 27 December 2005 (UTC)CRW

Three different articles give different origins to the phrase: White Elephant, White elephant (pachyderm) and White elephant gift exchange. It would be good to get a definitive answer and update all three.

I'm much more inclined to believe that the conventional definition of "white elephant" is the origin of this gift exchange game's name, rather than the supposed New Jersey custom of using wrapping paper inside out! The former probably predates the latter (and predates this gift exchange game as well, probably), and probably even predates New Jersey itself!!  :)
Andy Nguyen (talk) 16:37, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] White Elephant vs. Yankee Swap

Should this page be focused on White Elephant and Yankee Swap get it's own page? Or are they so similar (and often confused) that they should exist in the same wiki article? --Terevos 22:37, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

It's the same game. -- -- MisterHand (Talk to the Hand|Contribs) 15:03, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

This article is incorrectly titled. The term white elephant, in this context, on wiki and throughought the web references a type of gift. Generally speaking, you give your junk to someone else.

This article describes a very specific party game, which has many different names.

Caveat: While the party game described in this article can involve "white elephant" gifts, "white elephant" gifting itself is not a round-robin party game.

The term "White elephant" is already defined and explained in it's own posting. This article needs to be renamed to reference the game itself, especially since the text of this article does not address the "white elephant" concept at all. AlienZen (talk) 20:37, 7 December 2007 (UTC)