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dovahkiitten16 t1_j0z02hz wrote

Reply to comment by KikisGamingService in I wrapped our white elephant gifts in the shape of toilet and a giant plunger. by LeftClique

But the idea of swapping gifts around is unique. White Elephant is also a game.

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chrissesky13 t1_j0z15i7 wrote

Idk what they're talking about the gifts needing to be bad. My friend group and now my work group are doing a white elephant. We had a $50 limit in our friend group. There were nice bottles of whiskey/scotch, a really cool back massager that works at home or in your car, a karaoke speaker and microphone, a giant button activated wearable Optimus Prime helmet, lotions and body wash stuff from bed bath and beyond, a Switch game. Sure some of them are silly but they're not bad gifts. The massager is legit!! We all laughed at the helmet and then took turns trying it on.

The last family Christmas I attended at my husband's we played white elephant and those fucks had tablets in the mix. They were like Amazon fire tablets but still new and free to whoever stole em.

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Igor_J t1_j0z3tt5 wrote

My office does a white elephant swap and the gifts are typically decent and/or funny. Many of the gifts got "stolen".

The alternative was Secret Santa which imo is terrible because do you really know your coworkers and their interests? What if you draw the bosses name?

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APRForReddit t1_j0z3tzt wrote

That’s cool. But it’s not a white elephant.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_elephant_gift_exchange

“A white elephant gift exchange,[1] Yankee swap[2] or Dirty Santa[3][nb 1] is a party game where amusing and impractical gifts are exchanged during festivities. The goal of a white elephant gift exchange is to entertain party-goers rather than to gain a genuinely valuable or highly sought-after item.”

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dovahkiitten16 t1_j0zadb9 wrote

If you scroll down to the rules part you’ll see where the idea is that gifts can be swapped around and/or stolen. I would argue that the game part of it is what sets White Elephant apart from a traditional gift exchange or Secret Santa more than the quality of the gifts. So is there a word for it when you do that part of the game but make the gifts decent?

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APRForReddit t1_j0zcrog wrote

It’s called a gift exchange….

White elephant refers to the story of the Thai king giving people he didn’t like white elephants. They weren’t allowed to decline or get rid of the gift, and taking care of an elephant would bankrupt them.

That’s why it’s called white elephant. It’s about shitty gifts

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DoofusMagnus t1_j106fid wrote

Things can evolve beyond the origin of their names.

In the part you quoted you even demonstrate that the activity has names other than White Elephant. By your logic, can Yankee Swaps only be done by people in the northern US?

"Gift exchange" could describe any number of things, from a standard everyone-buys-soemthing-for-everyone-else, to Secret Santa, to White Elephant/Yankee Swap. Have you seen "gift exchange" used anywhere to specifically refer to a game of White Elephant done with non-shitty gifts?

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dovahkiitten16 t1_j0zay43 wrote

My (extended) family does a White Elephant because it’s far cheaper than having to buy gifts for everyone and is much less pressure than a Secret Santa. It’s always a fun game, but yeah, effort is made to make the gifts decent. I got a bookshelf this year and stuck my cousin with a box of chocolate covered peanuts in exchange.

I’ve never heard of gifts having to be bad or that being the qualifier for making it a White Elephant. I thought it was more about the game aspect to gift giving.

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