63 Perfect White Elephant Gifts That'll Cost You Less Than $25 (2024)

FAQs

How much should a white elephant gift cost? ›

A: Most White Elephant gift exchanges or Yankee Swaps have a set price range to make sure everyone is gifting items of equal value, so check in with the person organizing the swap first. If you're still unsure, a good default range for a group of friends or coworkers is $10 to $25.

The white elephant gift is not supposed to be ordinary. That generally means no gift cards, nice clothes, or common home goods. The more unusual or garish, the better! The present should be wrapped, bagged, or otherwise obstructed, so you can't tell what it is before opening it.

The White Elephant Game Rules

Sit in a circle and place the gifts in the center, preferably under a festive tree. The person who drew #1 selects a gift from the pile, opens it, and holds it up for all to see. The person who drew #2 decides whether to steal that gift or unwrap a mystery present from the pile.

The first person opens a wrapped gift, and the turn ends. On subsequent turns, each person has the choice to either unwrap a new present or to steal another's.

“There [are] some things that you can't go wrong with in general: beeswax candle sticks, pretty stationery, a box of chocolates, lottery tickets, a small bottle of rum if it's the right crowd to give alcohol to,” Smith says. “There are certain general things that can make for really fun gifts.”

The player who has number 1 will select a wrapped gift from the table of gifts, and unwrap it – showing the item to the other participants.

Perfect White Elephant Gift! $15 worth of lotto scratchers and $1 frame from the dollar tree. Perfect White Elephant Gift!

Part of the fun is watching players try to conceal their “good” gifts or encourage players to take their “bad” gifts. Each gift should be attractively wrapped with no nametag.

How do you play Dirty Santa? ›

Whoever drew #1 selects a gift from the mysterious pile of gifts, opens it, and reveals what it is to everyone. Whoever drew #2 can either select a gift from the pile or choose to steal #1's gift (this is where the dirty in "Dirty Santa" comes in). If #1's gift is stolen, they must choose a new gift.

What is a White Elephant gift exchange? White Elephant is a party game in which players bring wrapped gifts at a set price, such as $20. From there, they draw numbers and pick the gifts out one by one from the pile. They also have the option to steal.

The term white elephant refers to an extravagant, but impractical, gift that cannot be easily disposed of. The phrase is said to come from the historic practice of the King of Siam (now Thailand) giving rare albino elephants to courtiers who had displeased him, so that they might be ruined by the animals' upkeep costs.

The white elephant exchange is a time-honored tradition where everyone brings a wrapped gift and then draws a number to decide what order they'll choose a present in. The rules can vary, but from there, you generally trade and swap gifts that, most of the time, end up sitting in the back of your closet.

In our experience, blankets are another popular white elephant gift item -- after all, who doesn't like staying warm and cozy in the winter? This soft flannel tortilla wrap blanket is a fun spin on the traditional white elephant winner.