Creative White Elephant Gifts for Christmas

Poor Chuck Simmons. He was a cute, young, newly minted graduate with a bright future in the large corporation where we both worked. Chuck seemed to lead a charmed (professional) life until the office Holiday party. One of the Administrator's decided we would have a white elephant gift exchange that year, and the rest of us agreed. The day of the party, everyone had a great time laughing at the various fruitcakes, chia pets and toaster sweater's. Then Lucy from marketing unwrapped...a brick. An actual red, fireplace brick. The room went silent. "Whose gift is this?" she asked. There was only one person smiling. Chuck. "What?" he said. "It's a paperweight, get it?"

Fortunately, Chuck was able to recover, but people never thought he was a boy genius again. Because Chuck broke both of the two cardinal rules of White Elephant gift giving. And that is, the gift has to have actual value. If everyone is limited to a $5.00 present, you had better bring something worth $5.01. Not something you picked up from the construction site next door.

The next cardinal rule is, your gift must be new. Re-gifting is OK, and even encouraged. But do not wrap an old scarf, or the bottle of lotion you used once and had to put away because it had sparkles that made you look like a stripper. Chuck violated this rule by giving something that no longer had a tag on it.

To avoid becoming the next Chuck Simmons of your office, here are a few suggestions.

Cardinal Rule #1 bears repeating: give something of value! The gift can be funny, or kitschy, or even ugly, but it must never be completely and utterly useless. Don't forget that you are still giving a GIFT. For example:

1. A Ghia pet. This has become a pop culture punch line, but Ghia pets are what keeps getting "stolen" in gift exchanges.

2. A snow globe. Preferrably one from a well known tourist destination like Las Vegas, Atlantic City or Niagra Falls. Check the toy section of drug stores, the 99-cent store or an airport gift shop.

3. SWAG. A canvas bag from the last conference you went to, especially if it has an obscure message like "Levers and Pulleys User Conference 2007".

4. A wall calendar. Think 80s rock bands, minor Internet celebrities and the singers of one hit wonders.

5. A massager. Those little hand held, battery operated ones with the three round balls at the end of them.

6. A fruitcake. Enough said...although the "value" part comes from the few people who actually like fruitcake.

7. A giant can of popcorn. Warehouse stores sell garbage-can sized tins of popcorn. Always well received by someone who has a Super Bowl party coming up.

8. An all-in-one, ginormous remote control for the TV. You know, the ones the size of a book. You can regift it to give to your great aunt. A friend of mine (with roommates) kept losing her remote. She kept this white elephant gift, and...problem solved.

These are just a few of the suggestions, but I think you get the idea. The "white elephant" part comes from giving something that is cheap, impractical and silly, but one that can still able to be used by the recepient. The best places to find these items are in the sale aisles of your local drugstore, five-and-dime or dollar store.