White elephant gift exchange rules
A white elephant gift exchange is a party game. Everyone brings one wrapped gift, and players take turns opening a new gift or stealing one that's already been opened. It's known as Yankee swap or Dirty Santa in some places. Gifts are often funny or useless, but many groups also set a small budget.
What you need
- One wrapped gift per person
- Numbered slips of paper, one per person
- An agreed budget or a "useless items only" rule
Common rules
- Everyone puts their gift in the middle and draws a number.
- Player 1 picks a gift from the pile and opens it.
- Each next player either opens a new gift from the pile or steals an opened gift from someone else.
- Whoever gets their gift stolen picks again: open a new gift or steal a different one.
- The game ends when every gift is opened.
Popular house rules
- Steal limit: a gift is "frozen" after it has been stolen a set number of times, often three.
- No immediate steal-back: you can't steal back the gift that was just taken from you.
- Final swap: player 1 gets one last chance to swap at the end, since they had no choice at the start.
White elephant or Secret Santa?
White elephant is a game for one evening where everyone is together. Secret Santa assigns each person one giftee in advance, so people can choose a gift for someone specific, and it works even if the group only meets at the exchange. Santalo draws Secret Santa names in secret, with a white elephant mode where everyone wraps something useless they already own.