White Elephant Gift Ideas for Every Budget

Tips for "winning" the next holiday gift exchange, with hit gift ideas that fit your budget and match your values. 

A white elephant party (or "Yankee swap") is a gift-exchange game where participants bring and swap gifts, and vie to bring home the best gift.

As a group, it can be a great way to save on holiday gifting costs: rather than feeling compelled to purchase gifts for everyone, or risk leaving someone out, your friend or work group can bring one gift and receive one gift. Plus you get to have a fun party and game!

The basic rules of the gift exchange game are well-established: participants take a number, then get to "steal" the gifts that have already been opened in the hopes of taking the one they want the most:

• Wikipedia: White elephant gift exchange
• "Official" White Elephant Gift Exchange Rules

But the unwritten rules vary by group:

• Should the gifts be serious or humorous? It's up to the group! Although gift exchanges were initially humorous, contests to bring the strangest products, many groups have made these exchanges quite serious, as a substitute for expensive holiday gifts. No matter what's decided, it's pretty normal for at least one person to bring a frivolous or humorous gift anyway!
• Is there a specific price point? Usually gifts are meant to be of similar value. It's a good idea for the party organizer to set a general spending guide or cap, but there are no rules.

These unwritten rules will guide your white elephant gifting strategy! 

Here we present gift ideas for three different strategies, at different budgets:

1. People-pleasers: something that should be useful for just about anybody. Kind of practical and maybe considered "boring" but are often fought over since few people want to go home with something weird.

2. Humorous / weirdly niche / goofy: bring a laugh and delight to everyone and maybe just find that exact right thing. 

3. Something they'll fight over: make the game interesting by bringing a little luxury. 

These items should be useful and functional for just about everybody - maybe not the sexiest gift but might be fought over! 

The spirit of the white elephant: humorous, weird, niche, or oddly specific! 

The kind of thing that people don't always buy for themselves but treasure when gifted. 

One nice thing about all of these gift ideas is that they're made by a small family company in Oregon. They can showcase your values and reduce the buying of plastic one-time-use joke gifts that just go into landfills. 

If in doubt: consumables like good food or wine are always a hit at the parties we've been to! 

We hope these gifting strategies inspire you no matter what products you choose to buy: happy holidays!