Twenty-Five Great White Elephant Gift Ideas

White elephant gifts share many characteristics - to be blunt, they are usually useless, tacky, unwanted, undesirable, and/or regifted items that you haven't thrown out, but that you desperately want to be rid of! Most of us have many such items that no longer serve a purpose but that we feel bad throwing out!

So here is a list of some great "white elephant" gifts that you are sure to have somewhere in the depths of your closets or in the back of the freezer! Whatever you do, give and receive a white elephant in good fun! Just save it to regift next year!

1. CD's from back in the day - Morris Day and the Time, Michael Jackson, Milli Vanilli, Flashdance soundtrack, you get the idea...maybe an old Walkman and assorted batteries to go with it?

2. That old bridesmaid's dress you just can't throw out!

3. A collection of your kids' old videotapes or video games maybe with assorted old remote controls (Barney is great!)

4. Food items such as old boxes of tea, summer sausages you got as a gift, fruitcake, Cheese Whiz, assorted old spices (nothing expired or dangerously moldy, please!)

5. Old tennis shoes, maybe with new laces and some shoe polish to perk them up!

6. Assorted unmatched gym socks - with instructions on how to make sock dolls?!

7. Lawn ornaments of the plastic sort such as pink flamingoes, elves, mushrooms, frogs, fairies, gnomes, ....

8. Bag of birdfood and an old birdhouse

9. Old Barbie and Ken (with a sports car, even better!). GI Joe would be a big hit!

10. A few old Hotwheels cars (and throw in some tracks!)

11. A stack of old coupons and a new pair of scissors

12. A lava lamp (this is actually a decent present!)

13. A velvet paint-by-numbers poster

14. A stack of teeny-bopper magazines or posters

15. An old graphic t-shirt made into a pillow

16. A Paris Hilton or similar "celebrity" photo in a frame

17. Old college textbooks or half-done coloring books and a large bag of broken crayons

18. False eyelashes, curlers, hotroller set in one of the many makeup bagsyou can't seem to throw out!

19. 1980's costume jewelry, toe socks, Flashdance sweatshirt (cut up, of course)

20. That stinky but expensive cologne nobody wears (or several bottles!)

21. Cracked coffee cups and some leftover coffee, assorted mismatched spoons

22. Clothes including stirrup pants, ugly ties, ruffled shirts, plastic miniskirts, dyed bridesmaid shoes in unusual colors, and similar!

23. Statuettes, figurines, and tourist knick-knacks of all sorts!

24. Old cookbooks - the ones with the unappealing photos and yellowing pages! Throw in a few old cookie sheets and rusty cupcake pans so the baking can commence! Maybe one of those half-full containers of cupcake liners too!

25. Equipment such as old ski boots, an old tennis racket and tennis balls, old beach toys or floats, inline skates or roller skates, hula hoops, swim floats, an old bowling ball, old dog toys...

So there are 25+ ideas you can choose from! I probably just got you started thinking of all the many, many things you really want to get rid of! So go ahead and find that white elephant and, while you're at it, donate the rest of the junk!