One of the best ways to celebrate the holiday season is to plan a White Elephant party. There’s no better feeling than gathering around a pile of neatly wrapped gifts with your friends and family and playing a festive game. To help you organize the perfect White Elephant gift exchange, FTD has outlined a helpful guide below.
White Elephant: The Rules
Before you get started with the gift-giving fun of White Elephant, you first need to know the rules. First off, your players will draw numbers to determine who will go first, second, third and so on. After the first player opens a gift from the pile, the second player can either choose to steal the first gift or open a new one.
When someone has their gift stolen, they choose a new gift from the pile to open. Once every player has taken their turn, at the end of the game, the first player gets to swap their gift with any of the other players, bringing the game to a close.
Planning Your White Elephant Party
Now that we’ve gone over the rules, it’s time to start planning your White Elephant party. Make sure to start planning a couple of weeks before the date of your celebration, since you’ll want to give people the proper amount of time to pick out gifts. Once you’ve decided on a date and location for the game to take place, you’re ready to go down the list of steps required to throw an awesome party.
1. Create Your Guest List
Of course, the first step to throwing a White Elephant party is to draft your guest list. If you’re planning the gift exchange for your kids, then you can put them in charge (though you might want to limit the number of friends they’re allowed to invite). If you want, you could even plan two separate parties: one for your adult friends and one for the youngsters.
2. Set a Price Limit
For White Elephant parties, it’s recommended to set a price limit. This prevents people from going overboard with overly expensive gifts that put the other gifts to shame. It’s normally good to keep the price range under $10-$20. When you decide on a price limit, you also might want to specify whether your guests should bring gag gifts or regular gifts or both.
3. Choose a Theme
Next, make sure that you’ve chosen a theme for your party. This step isn’t required, but it definitely adds to the excitement. Choosing a theme is a great way to encourage your guests to dress up and have fun. Either make your party ugly-Christmas-sweater-themed or have people dress up as their favorite Christmas characters.
4. Outline Rules on the Invites
Since not everyone is familiar with White Elephant, make sure you include the rules on your invitations. Remember to inform your guests of the time and location of the party and the price limit on gifts. If you’re having trouble deciding on an invitation design, feel free to use our holiday-themed printables below.
5. Decorate
Decorating your party venue can be a great way to put your guests in a festive mood. Either hang Christmas-colored string lights around the house, light some scented candles or hang ornaments from the ceiling. Feel free to get as creative as you want! You may even want to set the table with the printable place cards provided below.
6. Display the Gifts
Once you’ve got everything in order and your guests have arrived, it’s time to put your gifts on display. Stack them in a pile or organize them by shape or size. If your Christmas tree is on display, then putting them under the tree is a must. And don’t forget to add some holiday cheer to your presents with some festive gift tags.
Gift Ideas
If you’re having trouble coming up with a great White Elephant gift idea, look no further. We’ve outlined a list of some of our favorite gift ideas below.
Scented candles: Wrapping up some holiday-scented candles can be a great way to spread cheer.
Memory foam pillow: A memory foam pillow is one of those gifts that anyone could enjoy. Whether the recipient is a kid or an adult, since everyone sleeps, a comfy pillow can make for the perfect present.
Gingerbread house kit: Gingerbread houses are a tried and true classic gift. When you receive one, you can either unleash your creativity and build the house or skip straight to gobbling up the gingerbread.
Karaoke microphone: The best way to end a gift exchange is to follow it up with some out-of-tune karaoke. This is another gift that’s great for both kids and adults.
Festive coffee mug: You can’t go wrong with gifting someone a coffee mug. Even if they don’t drink coffee, they could use it for tea or simply keep it as a decoration.
Sweet treats: If all else fails, just wrap up an assortment of chocolate, gummies and other holiday-themed treats.
Conclusion
There’s no better way to kick off the holiday season than with a festive White Elephant gift exchange. However, don’t get too caught up in the gift-giving part of the celebration. While gifts are great, what’s most important is that you have fun bonding with your friends and family.
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