4 Silly White Elephant Ideas to Make Your Gift Exchange Unforgettable
If you’ve ever left a holiday party clutching a singing fish or a jar of “mystery” jelly beans, you already know the magic of a white elephant exchange. It’s a light-hearted, slightly chaotic gift swap where the point is to give someone an impractical, useless gift as a laugh. White elephants are also a great way for old friends to catch up as the holiday season is winding down and are quickly becoming a favored tradition.
In this guide, the party experts at American Carnival Mart are pulling back the curtain on the mystery of white elephant celebrations. Learn more about what they are, what to expect, and most importantly, what you should bring. Here are four unique, silly ideas to ensure your next white elephant will bring the gift of giggling, and where you can find the items you need to do it.
What Exactly is a White Elephant?
A white elephant is a playful gift-exchange game. Guests bring wrapped gifts, usually inexpensive, goofy or wildly impractical, then draw numbers to determine the order of choosing. Each turn, a player can either open a new gift or “steal” an already opened one, with simple house rules to keep things moving (like limiting how many times a gift can be stolen). The best swaps feature gifts that are fun to unwrap and even funnier to watch get stolen repeatedly.
The origin of the term white elephant can supposedly be traced back to the ancient kings of Siam (modern-day Thailand), where courtiers who somehow managed to anger the monarch would be given a white elephant, considered sacred at the time, as a gift. Of course, these animals were large, costly and ultimately useless to the person receiving them, making them an extremely impractical gift that was more trouble than it was worth.
Today, we use “white elephant” to refer to the gift exchange game in honor of the tradition of giving wildly impractical gifts. While white elephants have been a part of office culture for decades, they have also become an increasingly popular opportunity for Millennials and Gen Z to get together with friends shortly after the holidays. Like Friendsgiving, this tradition appears to have developed out of the convenience of having everyone back in town for the holidays as people visit their parents and family.
While some people use white elephants to give away unwanted or wacky gifts received during the holidays, participants usually go out of their way to buy gag gifts within a pre-determined price limit. As you never know who will end up with the gift, the best practice is to get a gift that most people will generally find impractical but hilarious.
Gift Idea #1: The Duck Aquackolypse
What’s more impractical than receiving a rubber duck dressed in a goofy outfit? How about receiving 100 rubber ducks, each dressed in a different goofy outfit. Talk about “fowl” play!
Unless your name is Ernie and you live on Sesame Street, most adults don’t really have a need for rubber ducks. At the same time, this assortment of 100 different rubber ducks is colorful, funny and just useful enough as office desk and car dashboard decorations that it skirts the white elephant line between impractical and burdensome perfectly.
These fellas are easy to pack up into a cardboard box and wrap, giving white elephant goers the false impression that the gift must be something big.
Gift Idea #2: Getting in the Right Headwear Space
No white elephant is complete without someone getting some sort of ridiculous object they are later forced to wear to the amusement of all the other partygoers.
Bombastic headwear is the gift of choice. It’s easy to put on and take off, is super noticeable and can often be wrapped inconspicuously so that the gift receiver has no idea what they’re getting until it’s too late. While bald caps or beanies with goofy sayings on them are a popular choice, we’ve got something even better.
Introducing Hat-A-Mals! These silly pieces of stylish headwear are perfect for both white elephants with close friends and office co-workers. They’re showy and make for some funny pictures, while not being overly embarrassing or demeaning. And while you’re not likely to see your coworkers wearing them in the office on regular occasions, if you happen to live in a town with a popular sports team, matching your Hat-A-Mal to the mascot allows the recipient to get a lot more miles out of it.
Gift Idea #3: The Gift That Keeps on Giving, and Giving, and Giving…
Have you ever watched someone unwrap a present only to need to open a box, that led to another box, which led to another box, and so on before reaching the actual gift? It’s a timeless joke that never gets old.
But it also introduces a whole new dimension of impracticability. What if, instead of just the gift being more trouble than it’s worth, unwrapping the gift is more trouble than it’s worth?
Enter the white elephant grab bag. This fun tactic has you wrap various inexpensive, useless items in different levels of packaging. As the gift recipient unwraps their present, they continue to discover more and more items, only to realize when they finish unwrapping everything and put all the items together that…it’s just a random assortment of gag items.
Like the bulk rubber duck gift, the volume of items contained within the gift is what makes it so comical. It works best with trinkets and other small items like finger traps, whoopee cushions, mini desktop toys, unusable large desk toys, and the fan favorite, rubber chickens.
The best part is that with such a large variety, whoever gets stuck with the haul at the end of the white elephant will still likely find something they enjoy. It’s a win-win!
Gift Idea #4: Inflating Expectations
Similarly to the “never-ending” present trope discussed above, the “fake out” present is peak white elephant comedy. A great way to trick your friends is to give a gift that is expertly wrapped to look like something interesting and useful, only to turn out to be the exact opposite when opened.
Ideally, this is done with something big, light, and without moving parts, so it won’t give anything away if people decide to “shake” the gift first. If the first thing that popped into your mind when reading that was “giant inflatable alien,” well, you’re definitely a strange one, but we like the way you think.
Large inflatables of any size and shape should work for this gifting trick. In fact, the weirder, the better. For example, who would have guessed that the giant cylindrical-shaped gift was a big inflatable crayon? And who would ever imagine that vaguely brand-new-telescope-shaped gift was actually an inflatable giant flamingo combined with an inflatable galaxy mallet?
After the fun of watching someone open the gift is over, these colorful, giant gifts make for fun props in obligatory white elephant photos after the game is over, and can easily have their air let out at the end so they can be easily stored for the “lucky” person who gets to take them home.
Prepare for Your Next White Elephant with Fun, Unique Gifts from American Carnival Mart!
Ready to pack your swap with laugh-out-loud surprises? American Carnival Mart has bulk rubber ducks, Hat-a-Mals, and loads of novelty items to build legendary gag gifts without blowing your budget. Whether you need one show-stopping present or enough goodies to stock the whole party, our selection makes it easy to mix, match and wrap the perfect surprise.
Planning a swap for your office, classroom, or community group? We can help you build custom bundles and find the right quantities to balance laughs and inconvenience so everyone has a good time. Get in touch, and let’s make this white elephant the one everyone talks about all year!