Making Your Office Gift Exchange Games Enjoyable

Jillian Gallo asked:


How can you make your office gift exchange more Enjoyable? Play a fun party game!  There are several games I can think of to make your holiday gift swap more fun than just handing someone a present. 

There are a lot of enjoyable gift exchange games you can play in your office during the holidays.  You can opt for the popular “Secret Santa” gift exchange game or the much loved “White Elephant”.  Both of which are office favorites and are quite fun as long as everyone knows the rules of the game.

A well known party favorite is the “White Elephant” gift exchange game that requires Christmas gifts.  The rules can differ from one office to another but it commonly works in this manner.  Every participant buys a gift worth the dollar amount agreed upon by the players of the game beforehand.  The fun part of the game is in the buying of the gift of which anything too ordinary is not allowed.  What you’re aiming for is something fun and interesting that will surely be enjoyed by anyone who receives the gift.
Each participant of the game draws a number.  The numbering should be equal the amount of gifts at hand.  A player draws a number from a container, a bowl or perhaps a Santa hat in keeping with the holiday season.  The person who gets the number one gets to choose a gift first and then opens it.  The next person can choose to pick a new present or choose to get the first person’s gift.  The player cannot open the gift until they have made their choice.  The cycle repeats itself until all the players have a gift.  Any gift that has been opened is at risk of being stolen however opened gifts can only be stolen 3 times. As the game winds down, the first person who opened a gift gets to steal any gift they choose since they were not given the chance earlier on.

In every game of “White Elephant” there is always going to be a favorite gift that gets stolen a lot.  The most fun part of the game is finding out who will end up getting everyone’s favorite gift.  There will even be times that you can end up with the gift you bought. The original rules of this gift exchange game involved “regifting” or giving out gifts they had received but don’t like.  To make the game a little more interesting, this can still be applied today by allowing participants to bring gifts they don’t want or you can still go with just buying a fun present worth the agreed amount.

Another holiday favorite is the Secret Santa gift exchange game which involves having a spending limit on the gift that players of the game need to buy and have them create their own “Santa List”.  The way it works is that every player comes up with a list of gifts they want from Santa.  Each player should only list down gifts that are equal to the agreed dollar amount only and not go over it.

Each player then draws a player’s list from a hat or a container and then shops for the gift listed by the person they picked.  Although each player knows who they are buying the gift for, the receiver of the gift doesn’t.  On the day when the gifts need to be exchanged, players should give the gifts without being noticed.  A player can choose to reveal their identity afterwards or keep their identity a secret.  If they choose to keep their identity a secret, the game can get interesting but most would rather reveal themselves so that they’ll know who to thank for the gift.



Chocolate Buttons Galore