White elephant gift exchange
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White elephant gift exchange (also called Yankee Swap, Thieving Secret Santa, Nasty Christmas, Dirty Santa, Scrooge's Christmas, Chinese Gift Exchange, Chinese auction, or Thieving Elves) is a popular party game usually played during the Christmas season in the United States and Canada. The premise of the game is that each guest contributes one gift to the game, and ultimately each guest walks away with one different gift from the game. The type of gift is sometimes decided ahead of time (e.g., "something less than $10," "a used item from home," "a gag gift," etc.).
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[edit] Gameplay
All participants bring their gift to "the pile." Gifts are wrapped, but are not labeled to reflect a sender or recipient. In some variants the gift is even wrapped inside-out so that the printed part of the wrapping paper is not visible to the recipient. Gifts are typically inexpensive, humorous items; the term white elephant refers to a gift whose cost exceeds its usefulness.
All participants draw a number (from a hat, perhaps) to determine their order. The participant with #1 unwraps any gift from the pile and then shows it to everyone. Each successive participant, in the order determined from the drawing, can either 1) "steal" an already opened gift (if there's one they really like) or 2) be adventurous and go for a wrapped gift from the pile. If the participant chooses to steal, the person whose gift is stolen now repeats their turn and either 1) steals another person's gift (they cannot immediately steal back the gift that was just stolen from them) or 2) unwraps a new gift. This cycle of stealing can sometimes continue for a long time, until a new gift is chosen, at which point the turn is passed to the participant with the next number from the drawing. (An alternative to the drawing is to sit in a circle and take turns in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction.)
Since items can be stolen, the item in your possession is not yours until the game is over (i.e. a food item cannot be eaten until the game is over). However, this is often amended with a rule declaring a gift "dead" or "safe" after it has been stolen a certain number of times (usually two or three). This helps the process go more smoothly (avoiding, for example, the hypothetical scenario of the same gift being stolen by every successive participant) and limits the disadvantage of being among the first to choose gifts.
[edit] Variants
In another variant, called a Yankee Swap, the person who picked first also has the option of picking last or keeping the gift already in hand. In a Yankee Swap, every participant opens a wrapped gift first, and then decides whether to keep or exchange it. After they exchange or decide to keep their gift, the turn ends and there is no additional swapping.[1]
Additionally, some variants alter the time in which the gift is unwrapped. Some allow only the person holding the gift to know what is inside, and others wait until all of the picking is completely over. This provides more mystery to the game.
