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Thanksgiving here in America is now behind us. For me, this is when I finally give into the immense wave of Christmas. I've mentioned it in prior years that I'm no fan of the "Christmas Creep". I'm a big fan of Thanksgiving and feel its right to give it its due. I won't get on people for getting into the holiday spirit early, but I will get on stores for it especially when it became a trend to remain open and force employees to miss Thanksgiving with their families. Thankfully that trend seems to have reversed in recent years.
At my job my team has decided to hold a White Elephant exchange. Also called a Yankee Swap, the whole thing is more of a game than the giving of gifts. For those who have never played it, here is the concept:
Everyone brings a wrapped gift and places it on a table in the middle of the room. Then numbers are drawn at random. Person number 1 goes first. They must go to the table and unwrap a gift. Person number 2 goes next, but they have a choice. They can steal the open gift or take one from the table. Every person who goes has the same choice: steal or take a chance at the table. Depending on the number of steals allowed, eventually someone must go to the table, thus ending the sequence. In the game, going last or as close to last is the coveted position. All or nearly all the gifts have been unwrapped and you have a pick of what you'd want the most.
In years past I worked on a giant team of nearly 100 people and each year we held a Yankee Swap. It was so much fun I'd go in for the event on my day off and I wasn't alone. The workplace may not have been healthy every other day in the year but the day of the Yankee Swap was a 2-hour block of fun that made you forget that.
The White Elephant term is an interesting one because it has its roots in messing with someone in the most deceitful way. This random website I found explains it accurately:
The phrase is said to come from a perspective about 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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_elephant
While the article goes on to say there's no factual proof of this ever happening, it's a fun factoid that can easily live on in the modern day urban legend culture of the internet.
Either way, the game is a lot of fun. The more people who participate, the more fun it gets due to the volume of gifts and number of steals. And there's always one "hot" item that gets stolen a lot. Because when you're in fierce competition, a crock pot becomes highly coveted. That's what the season is all about. 😉
I hope you have a great week.
-Aaron
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