X-mas party gift exchange etiquette + bonus RANT!
 

OK, so I just got back from a fairly standard X-mas part that had a fairly standard gift exchange program. Dinner was decent and dessert was good... and then we got to the gift exhchange.

All gifts were wrapped and were supposed to be less than $25. Only 2 steals per gift and the first person got to go last again. I did a little thinking and brought a really good gift, that was a little over the price limit and was immediately traded twice. Of the 40 or so gifts, about 5 were actually well-thought-out like mine and traded twice. The other 30-35 gifts were absolute crap piece-of-shit bullshit shit crap. I actually had one of the 5 good gifts up until the very last trade when there was a flurry of activity and I ended up with the last gift on the table. It was a horrible piece of shit that I almost simply left on the table and walked away... but I was one rum&coke shy of not caring about completely alienating everyone in the room, so I just smiled and carried it back to my table.

It's a bit of a letdown. I had some high expectations for this group of people and ended up being pretty disappointed. Rant over.

Anyways... looking to hear others opinions on x-mas party gift exchange protocol for future engagements.

I never do white elephants b/c I know I will get screwed over at the end.

fuk that gif exhange shit...i always get fuckd over on that sht too...completely agree with yo

/drunken raht

Fuck gift exchanges. If I want something nice, I'll go buy it.

I didn't attend our Miata Club party on Saturday but the presents always kick ass there. My wife brought home a bottle of Firefly Ice Tea Vodka (made locally - if you guys haven't tried this stuff you should) and an assortment package of Jim Beam BBQ sauces. Last year we got a Heinny mini keg and a bottle of some sort of booze. I think you can see a trend!

She said the worst gift there was Obama's book (no one wanted it) but the coupon books she brought were stolen a max three times each. A bottle of booze/wine always goes over good and the $20 Entertainment books (you know, the kind where you always get about $200 or so worth of really good coupons) she always brings are stolen to the max each year. We don't do the first person last thing. If you have an exchange going for several years like we do more people "learn" how to make it sucessful and the party gets better. I can see a time when 100% of the presents are stolen multiple times as this party gets older.

So you're pretty much telling us that of the 40 people that brought gifts you were one of the 5 that was naive enough to think they would come home with something cool.
I love those parties but I've come home with shit so many times I don't like participating anymore. We never do the trade limit when we do it now or I won't even put my gift in. If that bottle of Crown can't be traded to the bitter end then they can fuck off and I'll just drink it myself.

What were the 5 good gifts, I might have to go to one of these parties and I don't feel like putting thought into it.

So what did ya end up with?
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Im confused how this works. Someone wanna run it by me, slowly.

the only kind worth doing are the 'dirty santa' kind. our friends usually buy joke gifts and use them for the exchange. highlights over the years include:

a set of VHS golf videos (regifted for about 3 yrs)
a set of coasters with the gifters picture in "finger gun" style poses on them
a goldfish
a meatball sandwich
a battery organizer
various sexually explicit trinkets that nobody wants
a 12" cookie
a fake signed baseball

and then there's my gf's work gift exchange where I made out with some decent stuff. some van gogh vodka, a nice decorative bowl, and a sushi rolling set (unopened for 2 yrs).

here's what I got my "secret santa"


Upgraded!!! New 3 Channel Double Counter Rotation Mini Indoor Helicopter

I pwn.

http://site.rctoyz.com/735-61A_WhiteHeli_2


I expect it to last about 5 minutes before it's destroyed, but good gift non-the-less.

THey are actually quite durable, but keep them out of the ceiling fans!

I test flew it...cats nearly ate it :)

Those little helicopters are a ridiculous amount of fun for the price, and they are surprisingly robust. I bought a set of two last year, the ones you can battle with and shoot each other down. They do fine in repeated impacts with walls & floors, but my brother-in-law's dog temporarily disabled one when he chomped it out of midair. We managed to fix it though.

The in-laws host a gift exchange every year, but it's one where you're supposed to bring crap you don't want. The kind where you get people trying to steal the salad shooter because it's the best thing available. People will wrap up and give away empty beer cans, half-empty gallon cans of paint, etc. It's only tolerable because I drink.

If you want to bring a good gift, anything that feeds a habit/vice will be popular. Booze is always stolen to the max. Chocolate if the party will have lots of wimmins. One year I brought a sampler of 5 cigars, and it was more popular (stolen) than I expected, because the women would steal them for their significant others.

i fucking hate this xmas bullshit more an more each year. I don't want a gift, I don't want to buy one for you, I hate most of you, and I pretty much just want to get drunk and rail the secretary. What happened to the classic x-mas party (as long as Hans Gruber doesn't take over the tower)?

I went to a white elephant party with a Porsche club and I got a free nitrogen tire fill-up. Quite possibly the worst gift ever. My contribution was a nice stainless flask, which I filled with Lagavulin 16. I got burned badly.

xmas is for kids. period.

humbug

what about blow and crunkpunch?

Here's how the gift exchange works:

Everybody at the party who wants to participate brings a gift of some sort, wrapped, based on a set price point. When you show up to the party, you put your name in a box and when your name gets pulled, you go pick a gift... either you pick a gift off the table or you can steal a gift somebody has already opened, and they get to pick something new off the table. This goes until the last name is pulled, which should correspond to the there being one gift left on the table. When that's over, the very first person who was chosen gets their pick of the lot, which usually means one more round of trading the last of the good items that've only been traded once.

The problem is when somebody brings a sweet new 3-channel Helicopter and some other douchebag picks up some piece of shit novelty item for $3.99 out a truck-stop bargain bin. It's just disappointing that a couple will spend $70 to come to the dinner, and put zero thought into a gift but then fight to the bitter end to secure one of the cool things. It's pretty fucking lame.

My personal problem is that being a military guy, when we do things like this at the squadron and some asshole brings some piece of shit, when you open it, you demand to know who brought this worthless piece of crap and give it back to them... and they dont' get to play. Fuck that guy! But being that this is a civilian social event, I have to be nice... for now.

And then there's the fuckface who performs a straight-jacket wrapping job that takes the guy who picks his gift 2 minutes to unwrap... meanwhile it's 10pm and everybody has to go to work. Oh well, they'll never see one of my cool gifts again.