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‘WHITE ELEPHANT’: A SUBURBAN FLOP? by Zara Singh

Writer's picture: CCA Pulse MagazineCCA Pulse Magazine

As a long time proponent of holiday celebrations and gift-giving (let’s face it, who isn’t), I’ve come to respect the many games and traditions associated with the practice. Like, ‘Secret Santa,’ for example. It’s low stress and everyone wins? Sign me up!


But what I’ve forever failed to understand the purpose of is a little activity by the name of ‘White Elephant.” Why it’s called this is the least of the game’s mysteries, but still an annoying one nonetheless. 


It operates like Secret Santa (except without preassigned receivers), but then diverges into a recipe for awkwardness when everyone is asked to select their desired ‘anonymous’ gift from the community pile and open it in front of everyone for a real-time reaction. As if the glaringly obvious potential for error (the gifts are random and in no way personalized) isn’t enough, the rules then dictate an obligatory ‘free-for-all’ during which people can GIVE UP the gifts they just opened in lieu of something more attractive that a friend may have across the room. 


Bizarre, right? And yet, I’ve attended Birthday parties, Christmas parties, and celebrations galore during which this game came up as one of the first ‘fun ideas’ for an activity. Frankly, I’m appalled. So much so, that in the spirit of holiday pettiness, I feel obliged to explain every reason I have for why ‘White Elephant’ is a terrible idea. Here we go, folks.


  1. It’s a classic case of ‘don’t judge a book by its cover,’ except the goal is to do exactly that. When choosing your first ‘White Elephant’ parcel, you obviously don’t know what’s inside, or whether or not it will be taken from you, so you likely strategize to pick one that endears itself to you. Maybe it’s the biggest, maybe it’s the shiniest, maybe it has a nice bow. Either way, the game forces its patrons to judge on appearances, which is never a good idea, whether in life or ‘for fun.’


  1. Why make people feel bad for trying to do something nice? Say everyone chooses a gift, opens it, and ends up with either a gift that is highly in demand or a sense of disappointment induced by getting stuck with the ‘lesser’ gift. Or, and this is if you get lucky, everyone finds a gift they’re happy with except for one. One thing that nobody wants, and keeps trading. How does that make the giver of that gift feel? It’s not their job to know what will be most sought after, they’re just supposed to provide a gift. As we know, things like gifts are so subjective to a person that, in slightly different circumstances, what was considered the ‘loser gift’ at that party could have been the ‘winner gift’ at another. Again, what in the world could possibly be the point of this?


  1. Why do we even give gifts, anyway? Not to get sappy here, but the worst part of games like this aren’t even the inconveniences or the awkwardness. It is that they represent the new meaning (or lack thereof) that has come to represent our holidays. ‘White Elephant’ is a game whose availability and fun factor are only increased proportional to the amount of money spent on the gifts, so it places the importance of receiving something one likes over all else. The point of giving gifts, at least as it was originally intended, has nothing to do with the object itself and everything to do with the gesture behind it. In short, the game takes all of the love out of gifting and turns it into a shark tank of product-hungry people who can’t even appreciate the fact that 1, they are celebrating the holidays with their friends, and 2, they even have the means to participate in the game in the first place. 


Sure, ‘White Elephant’ may have been originally intended as a fun holiday party activity meant to bring friends and family together and reward everyone with a little treat at the end. The true game, at least as it is being played now, instead makes others feel bad and brings out our greedy impulses while we are surrounded by those who are supposed to represent our best. In essence, it's a fa-la-la-la-FLOP if I’ve ever seen (or rather, unwrapped) one.

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