Does anyone participate in white elephant?

[Sonic Angel Knight]

I was just curious, I don't know history or details, but is probably best describe as the oppisite of christmas, instead of giving gifts you know someone wants, you get them something no one wants. (Like the fruitcake as a joke) But the idea is to get a gift so ridiculous no body can't get rid of it no matter how hard they try. Not sure what is about but the name probably has something to do with the Phrase "There is a elephant in the room." Which no one probably wants around.

If you do participate in that, you can either tell us about it, or the experience with it at least, is it fun, or not. I never actually done this, just saw it on some tv shows, but is confusing why this exist, was it someway to indirectly tell someone that you hate them or what? It makes for fun shows to watch but i wonder i there is more to it than what i observed.

 

[Sicklyboy]

I do it with my relatives but it's not usually stuff nobody wants; when it is, it's usually because whoever gave it just sucks at giving gifts lol. Usually the gifts are OK, like fruit and nut platters, lottery tickets, movies/popcorn/candy, gift certificates to restaurants, etc. Gifts can't exceed a certain price, usually like $25, just to keep it fair for everyone. And way it works, is everyone participating takes a number out of a hat, and goes in that order. First person picks a gift. Next person can either pick another gift (wrapped), or steal the one that was already opened (unwrapped). If someone steals your gift you get to pick a new gift. Keeps going on and on, once everyone has gone I think the first person has the option to steal someone elses gift, since they didn't have that option originally.

At least the way I've always seen it done, it's usually pretty fun, I enjoy doing it for Christmas with my family.

 

[Veho]

Not sure what is about but the name probably has something to do with the Phrase "There is a elephant in the room." Which no one probably wants around.

There's also a phrase, "white elephant", that means something difficult and expensive to maintain but hard to get rid of.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_elephant


I don't have anything so elaborate, but a few of my friends and I had a birthday gift "circle", where we would poll money to buy the current birthday boy/girl something huge and usually impractical. The rationale was that we didn't have enough money to buy something actually expensive that they would want, and that he/she would already own (a better version of) anything usable we could buy, so the present should only have a sentimental value but be of no use whatsoever. It started with a giant fan and kind of mushroomed from there. I once got a baking soda and vinegar volcano kit. So I guess that if you gathered all of a year's gifts in one place and had people pick and choose, you'd get the white elephant gift game.

Nowadays we have a little more money, so we just harass the person to tell us what they want, and then buy them booze.