The White Elephant Game

For the past three years the Lace Group that I belong to has played this game at our Christmas Party. We have laughed a lot while we played it. This game can be played any time of the year, since people always seem to have one or two things around the house that they don't want. We have our party between Christmas and New Years and can bring any unwanted Christmas gifts. One friend with allergies disposes of the scented candles, soaps and perfumes that make her sneeze every year. Other people in the group are delighted to get brand new smelly things. This game is truly an example of one man's trash being another man's treasure. It took about a year for everyone to realize what fun the game was and to bring things, but now no one wants to miss it.

What you need: 4 decks of playing cards - make sure they are all complete decks

Unwanted items, wrapped or unwrapped

Table to hold the items before the game

Places to sit in some kind of a circle while playing

People to play the game

Preparation: Set aside one deck of cards and shuffle three decks together. Then shuffle the single deck by itself. Put the unwanted items out and let everyone look at them. Of course they can't unwrap anything until they choose it, but everything else can be examined. Leave some time for everyone to look, but don't let this drag on too long.
Deal the shuffled cards out to everyone. We usually don't limit this to those who brought things. We want everyone to join in the fun.

One person is the dealer. The dealer gets the deck of cards that was not shuffled in with the other three. He pulls one card at a time and announces which card it is. Then turns that card down on the table.

The people whose turn it is get up, give the dealer their card and pick something from the table full of things. There is sometimes lots of consternation when the beautifully wrapped present turns out to be something not so great, although it could just as easily been the prize of the game. Sometimes they tell people what it was, and other times they leave it wrapped up, after taking a peak. Sometimes a person will have two of one card and they get to choose two items to carry back to their chair.

The fun really starts when you run out of things, because then you can pick from those things that have been chosen by someone else. This leads to all kinds of shenanigans and laughter. There is usually one or two things that pass around from person to person, repeatedly. Everyone wants them.Another trick that we found that people were doing with thing they really wanted to take home was that they kind of hid them. They put them behind their chair, or underneath other things, in an effort to disguise what they were. One lady actually sat on a book that she didn't want anyone else to get. She was discovered and we all laughed.

There should be three people picking things for each card. The first year that we played the game, some people did not hear their card called and so had cards left when all the cards had been pulled. The dealer might want to be sure that all three cards are turned in as the gifts are picked. A different trick that has been tried to obtain the "most wonderful" item, is to wait until after the other two people with the card have chosen. Then suddenly be surprised that it was your card and take it from the one who chose it. This can get hard to pull off and has led to lots of laughter as the first person who took it, had hardly sat back down.

Because our Christmas party includes husbands and teenage or older kids, we have a diverse group of gifts. Last year one woman was pretty much ready to kill her husband because of all the things that he collected in the game. We were sometimes amazed that someone else would want something that the donor really thought was worthless. At the end of the night pretty much everyone seems to have something they want, and has disposed of those things they don't want.

We all go home with gifts and we have gotten rid of things we don't want. It is a win, win situation. Talk about recycling - this game cost us not a cent to play and kept some things out of the landfill. Add to that all the laughter and good times that we had. I recommend this game as a great party game. Feel free to rename the game. If you can come up with a better name, go for it. This game works for any age or mixture of ages and I promise that you will have lots of fun.