In most of the exchange gifts or Holiday parties I have attended during the last Holiday season (2011), instead of the usual picking of the name in advanced and thinking of a gift for that person or getting the gift on his or her wish list, we had the white elephant exchange gift instead.



It really was an entertaining and fun way of exchanging gifts. For those who don’t know it yet, you still bring a gift or gifts but you would get to choose among the gifts brought by the other participants as the one that you would get. However, the fun starts or is actually in the “stealing” part. Wherein, there is still a chance that the gift you chose would be stolen from you.

But underneath all these fun and excitement, I stopped and questioned the spirit of giving in this type of exchange gift. I just hope that everyone is still focused or thinking about the fun and joy in making their friends happy with the gift or gifts that they brought in the circle instead of just thinking about the gift that they will bring home at the end of the game or the next item they would “steal”.

It really is a lot of fun and exciting. I just hope that the spirit of giving during the Holiday season was not diminished in any way.

We gave away a lot of cool stuff and got cool stuff as well. Actually, this is a really good idea for friends or people who don’t have the luxury of meeting up before hand and pick names for Secret Santa’s or organize one.

Although, there are a lot of technological means nowadays, but it is still easier to just bring something that everyone else would enjoy and will have a lot of fun as well.

I hope everyone had a good time receiving and giving gifts away during the holidays and let’s keep the spirit of giving alive.