White elephant gift exchange

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The White elephant gift exchange (also called Yankee Swap or Dirty Santa) is a popular party game played during the Christmas season in the United States. The objective of the game is for guests of a party to each contribute one gift to the game, and ultimately each guest walks away with one different gift from the game. Along the way is a random drawing to determine the order in which players get to unwrap gifts or steal previously opened gifts.

1 Rules
2 How to Play:
3 How to Play: Dirty Bingo
4 Origin
5 Trivia
6 References
7 See also

[edit] Rules

All gifts should be valued between a set value. This can vary based on the crowd, but should be standard for all attendees. Use your imagination to make it fun.
Participants bring their gifts wrapped or sealed in a gift bag, and often take care to hide the contents of the gift and the identity of the giver.
Gifts are placed in a designated area.
Participants who have the lowest score will go first and etc.

[edit] How to Play:

The guest who has the lowest score goes first. He/she chooses a gift from the gift pile, opens the gift for all to see, and keeps it for the time being.
The guest who has the next lowest score goes next. He/she can either choose to take an unopened gift from the gift pile or to steal a gift from any previous gift-opener.
Allow each subsequent person to either unwrap a new gift, or steal any of the gifts previously opened. If someone's gift is stolen, that person can immediately unwrap a new one or steal another gift.
Continue until someone unwraps a new gift, then proceed onto the next number. The seventh owner of a gift gets to keep it. The gift is dead after it has been stolen three times. It may not be stolen once there has been four owners. Owners of live gifts must keep them visible and hold them up when requested. [Variation] The "dead" gift rule can be applied at the round level rather than at global game scope. This means that a gift can become "dead" for that round after the specified number of exchanges rather than "dead" for the remainder of the game.
After all turns have been taken, the person who went first has the option of taking one more turn since he had the disadvantage of not knowing what any of the now-opened presents were in the beginning. However, he may NOT take any dead gifts nor may he steal back any gift that was stolen from him. This gives him the opportunity to steal something he likes better but at the same time, places SOME limits on what he can take. If there are no limits to #1 then he might as well sit back, relax, wait 'til everyone else is finished playing and then snatch whatever he wants!
Variation: After all turns have been taken, all guests vote on the best gift and the worst gift. The two guests who received those gifts must then exchange them.

[edit] How to Play: Dirty Bingo

The guests all sit in a circle around the pile of gifts in the middle of the circle. A shallow dish or bowl with two dice in it are passed around the circle, or more than one set of bowl with dice depending on the size of the group.
If the player rolls doubles on the dice, they take a gift from the middle of the circle. The gift is not opened.
Once all gifts from the middle of the circle are taken, play continues in the same fashion; however, with a change in the rules. When a player rolls doubles, they will take a gift that is still wrapped from another player.
Once the center pile of gifts is exhausted and stealing of gifts begins, play continues for a specified amount of time or until each player has an equal amount of gifts, as determined by the group.
This variation works best if each player brings more than one gift, but all players bring an equal amount of gifts.

[edit] Origin

The name "White elephant" originates from an old Burmese cultural reference to the value of an albino elephant, which is considered sacred and must be well taken care of, despite the financial burden that it may bring to its owner. Therefore, the gifts exchanged may be large, delicate and/or utterly pointless for the recipient (e.g., a huge stuffed animal for someone who lives in a small apartment).

[edit] Trivia

This game was featured in the Season 2 episode of The Office titled Christmas Party. It was referred to as "Yankee Swap." Character Dwight Schrute revealingly described the game as "Machiavelli meets Christmas."