Shouty White Elephant Night

Every holiday season, Anne's family gets together for a "white elephant" gift exchange, although as I wrote here four years ago, people don't know what "white elephant" means anymore.  The basic gathering is fun, and full of good spirit.  The game itself gets more out of hand each year.

This year someone bought an "official" white elephant game box, which as far as I can tell was just a cloth bag and chips from 1 to 40 or so, with some kind of tiny rule booklet which got lost almost immediately.  Or it got lost last year.  Who knows?

One reason I don't like group/social games is that they often boil down to lectures about the rules, or people shouting their versions of the rules at each other.  So, while the was a fun and energetic party game, there were moments of rule shouting, and people getting mad about not being heard over the other people shouting rules.  I'm pretty sure that etiquette was not covered in the tiny rulebook.  

On the meta side, there are always a few games among the gifts with this group.  We brought the Flow game as a gift, and I ended up winning a miniature banjo, which was stolen, so I opened another gift and got What's Your Meme, while Anne stole back the banjo later on.  When it was over, I gifted What's Your Meme to one of the party gamers in the group.  I don't find a stack of questions is ever an enjoyable game.

There was an odd new bit at the end of the session this year.  There was a funny gag gift that was wrapped in 5 or 6 or 8 layers of wrapping paper and bags.  This one turned out to be a lovely white elephant stone figurine about the size of a softball.  That would have been a fine gift to put on the shelf and remember the fun night with family.

But no, there were rules attached to it.  The winner of the white elephant this year has to wrap it even more elaborately next year.  It wasn't a winning trophy like some people were shouting.  It was an obligation, which, ironically (and I'm pretty sure the irony was lost on everyone here) counts as an ACTUAL white elephant gift.  The original idea of the white elephant is to give a gift that's going to be inconvenient or expensive to take care of.

So, fun game, a bit too loud.  Too many rules, nothing like a white elephant exchange until the white elephant shows up with all the baggage.  Kudos for that.  

Headache-inducing fun with some "game within a game" mojo.  The volume was probably extra high this year because there were about 25 people involved, and some fine gifts to steal.

Happy holidays.

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