Work decided to have one of these this year... What gifts have you given, received or seen at one of these? jw. I know some of you can come up with some good ideas to help...
I just last year I received a 3 pack of vhs tapes. These can be as crappy as you can imagine. Do you have some unopened gift in the back of the closet from years past? Perfect. Wrap it up and bring it to work.
i'm not going to mine.. give them a case of bottled water so that it's useful, but someone has to deal with carrying it
I got a toilet seat one year. I also got a homemade Mr. Potato Head made with a real potato and some google eyes glues to toothpicks. Thsi year for my wife's party we had a normal gift exchange, except one guy got his wires crossed and bought a white elephant gift. he was the only one, and some guy ended up with a spider man bubble bath set. I got a bunch of grill tools.
gift cards! I got one from iTunes. also, the present I gave as a speaker for your iPod. Essentially what I did was go to a store and walk around until I found something that people would want within my price range. Walmart has a ton of areas set up with Gifts for ____$ so they should be easy to find. Overall, my theory is to give a gift that other people would want and that you enjoy giving. If you don't want to make the effort of giving a gift, then don't participate, its that simple. Also, its the season of giving, so don't be too pissed if you get something crappy in return.
People usually give "gag" gifts at my company's white elephant party. And it's pretty cruel. Some people go buy a soda from the machine and wrap it up in a big box to fool everyone. Meanwhile, some people actually go get nice things like an assorted coffee multi-pack set or martini glasses. Last year I gave silly putty, play-doh, a slinky, and some other "kid" gifts. I got a foam nose stress "ball"/sunglasses holder in return.
Generally, the purpose of a "White Elephant" gift exchange is to give gag gifts, so the fun of it is to find something useless that a person won't want.
Agreed, if they wanted you to do a gift exchange where you buy a gift that someone would want, they would just call it a "gift exchange" the term White Elephant says to me that you are to buy a gag gift.
one cool idea that was stolen a few times were lotter tickets or scratch offs. it makes it fun b/c everyone wants it. i ended up with an assortment of coffees in a nice box. not bad.
teh lottery tickets reminded me of another I saw. A guy got a coupon for admission to a strip club then put it in a bag with a bunch of ones. That gift was very popular.
I'm thinking if you had time, which you don't the ideal gift is the gift that makes people laugh AND want it at the same time. Something like a shamwow or magic bullet.
