White Elephant Gift Ideas and Rules

Every one of these has the same quality: someone in the room will want it. That is the whole test for a good white elephant gift.

Read these aloud before the first gift is opened. Most arguments come from people playing the version they grew up with.

1. Everyone brings one wrapped gift within the agreed limit and puts it in a shared pile. Nothing is labelled.
2. Everyone draws a number to set the turn order.
3. Player one picks a gift from the pile, opens it and shows it.
4. Each following player either opens a new gift from the pile or steals an opened gift from someone else.
5. Anyone who has a gift stolen immediately takes their turn again, and may steal from someone else or open a new gift. They cannot immediately steal back the gift they just lost.
6. A gift is frozen once it has been stolen three times. It stays with its current owner for the rest of the game.
7. When the pile is empty, player one gets one final option: keep their gift, or swap it with any unfrozen gift in the room.

• 

  Classic white elephant

  One wrapped gift each, three steal limit, final swap for player one. Best for groups of eight to twenty and a limit around 20 to 30.

  Standard

• 

  Dirty santa

  The same game with more aggressive stealing and often no steal limit until the host calls time. Popular in the American South and best with confident groups.

  Cutthroat

• 

  Yankee swap

  New England name for the same idea. Some versions let each player steal only once per turn and give the final swap to the last player instead of the first.

  Regional

• 

  Themed exchange

  Every gift must fit one theme: mugs, socks, hot sauce, anything second hand, anything from a corner shop. A theme makes low limits far more entertaining.

  Cheap and fun

• 10 to 15: pure comedy. Expect novelty items, snacks and scratch cards. Set the expectation clearly so nobody feels short changed.
• 20 to 30: the sweet spot. Enough for a genuinely good gift, cheap enough that nobody minds losing it.
• 40 and up: a real exchange. Stealing gets serious and the game runs longer. Only do this with a group that agreed enthusiastically.

Whatever the number, spend close to it. If you want ideas at a fixed price point, our gifts under $25 and gifts under $50 lists are sorted exactly that way.

• Send the limit and the rules in writing a week ahead so nobody arrives with a gift worth triple everyone else's.
• Split large groups. Above twenty players, run two pools side by side or the last person waits an hour for their turn.
• Number slips in a bowl, drawn as people arrive. It saves ten minutes of confusion later.
• Keep a bin bag next to the pile. Wrapping paper takes over a room faster than you expect.
• Have a spare gift ready. Someone always forgets, and a spare tin of biscuits saves the moment quietly.
• Feed people first. The game is much better after food and one drink than at the start of the evening.

• Genuinely useless junk that leaves one person holding it
• Anything that needs a size, from clothing to rings
• Strongly scented candles, perfumes and lotions
• Anything a colleague would be embarrassed to unwrap in front of the whole room
• Fragile items that have to survive a car boot in December
• Live animals, plants that need daily care, and open food

If your group would rather buy for one named person than play a game, a straight secret santa is a better fit, and Christmas party games covers what to play once the gifts are open.

A white elephant originally meant a possession that costs more to keep than it is worth: impressive, expensive and impossible to get rid of. The phrase is tied to the sacred white elephants of Southeast Asia, which could not be put to work or given away, and the term entered English in the nineteenth century for any burdensome gift.

The party game borrowed the name in twentieth century America, where the joke was that everyone brought something they did not want. Modern exchanges have drifted towards gifts people genuinely fight over, which is why the game survives while the original meaning fades. You can read the background at Britannica.