[Steppes] "White Elephant" gift exchange

[Catherine Sims]

Please also consider the feelings of the child that might open your gift.  I
saw a child go from happy and excited to be participating to ready to cry
because of the gift he unwrapped.  I swapped my gift for his after the game
so he wouldn't be quite so unhappy, but I would be sorry to see such a thing
happen again.

You may think your offering is funny.  Every adult you know may agree with
you, but please consider that there might be children present who would not
understand and be disappointed.

Arianne Balfour

On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 10:23 AM, Jay Rudin <rudin at peoplepc.com> wrote:

> It might be a good idea if people understand that the gift exchange is a
> rather silly game, and here are the rules.
>
> Everyone who brings a gift will draw a number out of a hat.  In order, we
> will each choose a gift.
>
> The joker in the deck is that you can either choose a present still under
> the tree and unwrap it, or you can choose somebody else's gift, and then
> they get to choose again.
>
> A given gift can only be stolen twice.  Once it's taken by a second person,
> it's out of the game.
>
> Some of the gifts will be useful or fun; some will be awful, and some will
> be in between.  The reasonable limits are that you need to be prepared to
> justify the gift you bring to the morally uptight parents of the
> eleven-year-old who might get it.
>
> It's a good time to pass on that useful SCA item that doesn't match your
> current persona, or that fit you twenty pounds ago, or that's used in an
> activity you no longer do.  But it's also a good time to pass on that
> outrageous item you aren't willing to admit you own.
>
> Nobody has to play.  If it doesn't sound fun, don't bring a gift to it.
>  (And it's still fun to watch.  People start *caring* about who's going to
> wind up with the Three Stooges clock.)
>
> Robin of Gilwell / Jay Rudin
>
> P.S.  A note to newer members.  In our period, Yuletide gifts were
> exchanged, if at all, at Twelfth Night, so the real gifts that we bring to
> our friends will happen at our event on January 2, not at the Christmas
> party.
>
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