Prep for all those White Elephant presents next year

I love White Elephant exchanges. They’re fun, and for the past several years our small group has a brilliantly fun White Elephant Exchange game. HOWEVER, now that my kids are older and so many different groups want to do white elephant exchanges, it gets expensive. Here is my money-saving white elephant gift idea.

(nope no affiliate links unless I randomly shoehorn one in, the goal is to save insane amounts of money.

 

Step One needs in our money-saving white elephant gift starts now

Are you ready? This is super easy.

Head to your local stores and hit their clearance section.

Buy Christmas coffee cups or any other random Christmas storage unit you can find.

Or grab a few fun random Christmas stuff that can store for the next year or so. Fun Christmas dishes or things like that (though I’ve found those are never super popular in our white elephant exchanges).

 

Step Two of our money-saving white elephant gift happens after Halloween

Head to your local stores again, and grab clearance Halloween candy. You need to make sure it isn’t obviously Halloween candy.

So, no orange and black candy, just random bags of fun-sized candy.

 

And our final step

You ready for the final step in this BRILLIANT money-saving white elephant gift?

Take your Christmas cup and fill it with the candy. Then wrap your awesome white elephant gift.

Super simple and wildly popular at White Elephant parties.

 

The Funnest White Elephant Game Ever

And yes, I still maintain funnest is a word.

You need sets of 3 six-sided dice and a box. I’ve found it works best to have an extra set for every 5 or so people playing.

For this to work, have everyone bring two presents to the party. We usually do one “nice present” (like my chocolate filled coffee cup) and a “silly present” (back scratcher or a novelty t-shirt). Everyone puts their presents in a pile in the middle of the circle.

Spread the dice sets out among the people. You roll the dice once, and if you get doubles, you go grab a present. While this is going on, you keep going until all of the presents are claimed. Then you put the dice down and start opening the presents.

We have one person at a time open their present and make a point of showing what each item is. They have to be set out where everyone can see them.

Now comes the super chaotic part, and my favorite part of all. Set a timer for 10 minutes, and let people start rolling dice again. If they get doubles, they can steal a present from anyone.

Presents are never frozen.

So you could steal a box of chocolates and as you are walking back to your chair someone could steal that box, and before they get back to their chair it’s frozen again.

It’s hilarious and awesome.

At the end of the timer, if you don’t have any presents, you get to steal a present from anyone who has more than one present.

We’ve done this with several different groups and everyone loves this variation of White Elephant Christmas party.

 

More Christmas Fun

• Christmas Story Minute to Win It
• Go Tell the Story Christmas Bracelet
• Mary did you know? Yes and No