Tag Archives: gifts

White Elephant – Christmas Game

Nationality: Taiwanese
Age: 43
Occupation: President of an electronics company
Residence: Newport Beach, CA
Performance Date: December, 23, 2011
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English, Taiwanese

Rules:
-Each person has to bring in one present that is worth $20
-Once a present has been taken three times, the present can no longer be taken.

Directions:
1) Everybody picks a number out of the hat. That number determines the order for gift picking
2) The first person picks a present from the gift pile and opens it.
3) When it is the second person’s turn, he or she can pick to open another present from the gift pile or pick the gift that the first person opened.
-If person #2 takes the gift from the first person, the first person has to open another present from the gift pile.
4) After that, each subsequent person has the choice of either choosing to open another present from the gift pile or taking one of the opened presents from the previous people.
-If a person’s opened gift is take, then that person then also has the choice between opening another gift or taking another person’s gift.
5) The game ends when the last gift is opened.

My informant told me that White Elephant is a Christmas tradition at her household.  She adopted this tradition after she attended a Christmas party seven years ago at a friend’s house.  She liked the game so much that she decided to incorporate it into her Christmas celebration.  Every Christmas, my informant hosts a Christmas dinner for her entire extended family.  This game was quickly accepted by everyone and has now become a yearly tradition in her household.

I believe that this game must have started as a way for people to save money on buying gifts.  My informant told me that after adopting the tradition, all of the family members have stopped buying gifts for every single relative.  Instead, they have all just focused on finding that one gift for the white elephant game.  At the same time, my informant believes that the game is a great way to bring people together as it is very fun to see what gifts are taken and the reactions of those who gets their gifts taken.

Currently, NBC has ordered a new game show based on this game that will be hosted by Howie Mandel.

Annotation:
Hibberd, James. “NBC Orders New Howie Mandel Game Show: ‘White Elephant'” EW.com. 17 Apr. 2012. Web. 24 Apr. 2012. <http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/04/17/howie-mandel-white-elephant-nbc/>.

Ritual

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 50
Occupation: Instructor
Residence: Chandler, AZ
Performance Date: March 27, 2007
Primary Language: English

“The And Game”—a game on Christmas Eve where everyone gets in a circle and passes little gifts around every time the word “and” is mentioned from the book The Night Before Christmas

Notes:

The informant told me that every Christmas Eve, his family gets together with his wife’s side of the family at one of the relative’s house. After they eat dinner, but before they open presents they play what they call “The And Game.” Basically the host of the party buys an array of little gifts (like $5 dollar Best Buy gift certificates or boxes of chocolate) and wraps them up and gives one to each individual. They sit in a circle and pass the gifts around every time the word “and” is mentioned in the story The Night Before Christmas. One of the kids reads the story, making sure to emphasize each and, so that the passing goes at the right pace. There are enough “ands” in the story so that you don’t end up with the original gift you started with. He mentioned that they have been doing it for over 20 years now, and that he isn’t sure how it exactly started, but that every year they would read the book, and the game evolved out of it. He also said that it has become a pretty funny game because the children are getting older and the men like to try and unwrap the gifts before the game is over, so that you can peek at the gift. The men were unwrapping the gifts so much, that the informant’s wife decided to double wrap the and gifts one year, with packaging paper (virtually un-breakable) as the first layer and wrapping paper on top. When they attempted to unwrap the gifts, all they saw was brown paper.

I think that this ritual represents the many different customs people have around the holidays. The holiday season is full of different traditions families participate in, whether it be dealing with presents, Christmas decorations, or Christmas dinner. I think this particular ritual was born out of a tradition of reading the book, but when people got bored of the book or little kids got antsy to open the presents, the family adapted the tradition to a more interactive experience while keeping the tradition alive. This custom seems unique, as there is no real tie to it in anything online, however it does have similar elements to Hot Potato, in which a hot potato is passed around the group with the last person holding the potato when the music is turned off being out of the game.