White Elephant Info Page

So you’ve been invited to a White Elephant gift exchange. Woohoo! If you’ve never done one of these gift swaps (or it’s been awhile) the info on this page will give you a heads up on what to expect. One thing you should know right off the bat – if you’re going to a White Elephant party, you’re in for sleighful of fun! Read on to learn more.

Note: This player guide covers the basics. For lots more details, including rules variations and themes, see the main rules page.

What It Is

White Elephant is a popular type of gift exchange that’s been around for ages. You may know it as Dirty Santa, Yankee Swap, or any one of a slew of other names. It’s different than another gift exchange you may have heard of, Secret Santa, which requires some advance preparation from players. For White Elephant, just bring a gift – and yourself!

What to Bring

As mentioned, for White Elephant you simply need to bring a wrapped gift. Read your invite or contact the gift exchange organizer to find out the price guidelines for this gift. Sometimes there are also special instructions (ex. all gifts must be food), which your organizer will tell you about.

How to Play

Before starting, all the presents are piled up in one spot. The organizer decides the turn order for players, which might require people to sit in particular spots. Once everything is in place, the game goes like this…

  1. The first player selects a gift from the pile and opens it.
  2. The following players can either decide to open a new present or steal an already opened present. If they steal, the person who lost their present gets their own chance to open or steal a present.
  3. Once everyone has had a turn, the first player gets a chance to steal from anyone.

Those are the basics. However, don’t be surprised if the organizer adds a few wrinkles to the game. There are endless rules variations to this type of gift swap – but don’t worry, you’ll catch on!

Gift Ideas

There are a few things to keep in mind when picking out a White Elephant gift:

  1. It will be opened in front of others, so make it funny and/or entertaining.
  2. You don’t know who will open it, so make it universally appealing.
  3. Desirable gifts lead to lots of stealing, so make it good.

If you’re looking for ideas, I check out my annual list of the best White Elephant gifts.

Note for Organizers

The following QR code links to this page. Save the image (right click) and insert it somewhere on your White Elephant invitation so players can easily reach this info from their phones.

QR code linking to page with White Elephant player information

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Roberta Jeeves

Roberta Jeeves is author of the book White Elephant Gift Exchange: Rules, Themes, and Ideas for Hosting a Perfect Holiday Gift Swap. You can buy or borrow it at Amazon.com.