Today is our agency Holiday party. I wrote last year about the festivities and “planned” fun. This year the powers that be had the sense to scrap the door decorating contest, opting for a noon potluck, trivia game, and white elephant gift exchange. I am bringing cookies, and cranberry-orange glazed chicken thighs.
I am too burned out to come up with a white elephant gift. We found out yesterday that a beloved extended family member is probably going to be placed in Hospice care, which makes holiday festivities seem somewhat more frivolous than usual. I see, though, that the weather may be good when we travel Monday to Brookings, SD. It will be healing to be with family members.
My mother always had a hard time at Christmas, having lost a 7 month pregnancy in 1949 when her appendix ruptured. She did her best to keep Christmas cheerful, but it was hard. Tragedies are bad enough, but seem worse during the holidays.
What would you try to get rid of at a white elephant gift exchange? What holiday tragedies, frivolous or serious, have you had to contend with?
Trail Baboon 
I would love to work in an office where you work. The potlucks would be amazing!
My family did white elephant gift exchanges for a few years. I gave my engineer brother an antique typewriter. He actually liked it. The white elephant gift exchanges didn’t last due to lack of popular support. I was mostly interested just getting together for my mom’s sake, but I could tell my brothers weren’t really interested in having dinner or anything anymore. They had busy lives and in-laws, and Mom was alone unless I was there with her.
I don’t have much family left anymore. My mom died right after Thanksgiving in 2020. I had been her caregiver and her person, whether she liked it or not, since her diagnosis with Alzheimers. I spent a lot of time with her. It was hard to lose her during the holiday season. She loved this time of year and only wanted to be with my brothers’ families and her grandkids.
My condolences on the news about your relative, Renee.
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Thank you.
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My condolences as well. My mom died 30 years ago this past June, but because she loved Christmas and we did all the holiday things together–decorating the house, baking, wrapping presents–this time of year is always a bit melancholy. It was the same for my roommate and her mom. When we moved in together we decided to decorate each year in honor of our mothers. She has a display of Hallmark ornaments she and her mom had bought together, and while I don’t always use the 1950s glass ornaments I inherited from my parents, I do put out julbock, a candelaria, nissen, and other Scandinavian things for Mom. Sadly, my Julfader image (a plaque of Santa with antlers!) is not on display, because the house shifted and the closet He’s stored in would not open. I hope Odin is not offended…
–Crow Girl
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Thank you
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That’s a lovely tradition you have, CG. I have a few of my mom’s ornaments that I put out, even if there’s no real tree…
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Just a near tragedy. Mom used to make a real yule log–a foot-long or so pine log with several holes drilled into it spaced a few inches apart down the length of the log. She placed long red candles in the holes, adorned the bases with pine boughs, and lit the candles. Very pretty and festive.
She lit it on Christmas morning. All was fine for a while. But sometime after presents had been unwrapped, one of the candles burned down far enough to start the pine boughs on fire. The log was sitting on a table against a curtain-covered window. By the time we noticed it, the whole batch of pine boughs were on fire and threatening to ignite the curtains. Fortunately Dad came to the rescue and put out the flames. For some reason I still believe he used newspaper to smother the flames! Doesn’t make sense, but that’s what sticks in my memory bank.
No white elephants come to mind. Maybe an old NordicTrack ski machine that’s sat idle in the basement for ten years. *Hmmm, how to gift-wrap that monstrosity.*
Chris in Owatonna
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Maybe he quickly moistened the newspaper before using it to smother the flames?
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I wish I could remember. I’m not even sure he recalls the incident anymore. He’s 88.
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Rise and Get Rid of the Thing, Baboons,
We have a set of bookends that my husband is very attached to. His Grandma Mae made these during a crafting mania in the 1960s or 1970s. They are blue glass grapes glued to a wooden “L”. For years I have tried to include this masterpiece in a white elephant exchange, but without success. He is forgetting many things now, so soon they will be forgotten entirely. At some point they may appear at VS’s party!
My Daughter-in-Law has a Christmas birthday. That must be a tragedy of some kind since the birthday gets forgotten in the shuffle. My sister-in-law has a birthday upcoming on 12/22, so today the birthday card must go into the mail, but I have forgotten that many times over the years. While not a tragedy as such, the process of getting forgotten, I think, is difficult. But beyond that, we have no Christmas tragedy to speak of.
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JacAnon
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Apparently someone didn’t want their Dewar’s.
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A tragedy!
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dewars was my dads scotch
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My mom died on December 10th seven years ago. My birthday is the 14th, my niece on the 16th, and my nephew on the 23rd. It was bad enough that she died so close to Christmas but it would have been worse if it had been one of the birthdays. Her death in itself wasn’t a tragedy – she was 92, had virtually no short term memory, had significant medical issues, and was confined to a wheelchair and couldn’t understand why .
As a youngster I always thought having my birthday so close to Christmas was a tragedy. It was never forgotten by my family but there were a few relatives that would give me a combination birthday/Christmas gift. It didn’t seem fair that after Christmas was done, I would have to wait 11.5 months before getting any presents. And any clothes/accessories received were always for winter.
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I firmly believe that anyone who has a Christmas birthday ought to have a “half-birthday” party on June 25. That way the child can be the center of attention like his or her siblings/cousins on their birthdays, instead of getting swamped by the holidays.
–Crow Girl
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My friend Barbara McAfee has written a song about having December birthdays – I’ll see if I can find at least the lyrics…
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I’d bring my unabridged dictionary as the white elephant, but it’s so cumbersome to wrap and haul around.
My dad’s mom died suddenly just a few days after Christmas of 1969, three years after my grandpa died suddenly from a brain aneurysm. We had traveled to Florida to visit my dad’s brother… I remember it was hard on my dad to not be there right away.
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Well, after hosting a white elephant exchange at the holidays for 30 years now I think I’m an expert? I don’t have to work hard at all — I have a box of these silly gifts in the attic.
One of my dear friends has a daughter who was born on Christmas Day. I always send a Christmas card to Laura and then on her birthday she gets a birthday card. Most years we get together on Christmas Day and we always take time out of the day to sing and celebrate happy Laura-mas.
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My condolences to you and your family, Renee.
My paternal grandmother died right before Christmas, when I was 12 years old. I was the first grandchild on that side of the family and had no relationship with my maternal grandparents, so I was very close to Grandma and Grandpa. They were the glue that held my dad’s family together and every family celebration happened at my their house. They both were professional cooks and prepared a feast for Christmas.
When Grandma died, I was devastated, as was Grandpa. One of my aunts hosted Christmas that year, but it wasn’t the same and the family soon gave up trying to get together. We moved on and developed new Christmas traditions, but I missed my childhood Christmases at Grandma’s house.
My white elephant is an iMac desktop computer. It’s a bit slow, but otherwise in excellent shape. Husband has been trying to sell it for months with no success. It would be hard to wrap.
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Thank you very much.
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My usual thing to bring to a white elephant gift exchange is whatever I brought home from the last one. Not terribly creative.
The most successful thing I gifted at a party VS threw was a taxidermied raven that was looking for a home when Steve moved out of his hobbit house many years ago. I dressed it up with a little Christmas bling, and tim named it Yul. Yul made several repeat appearances.
I am a bit of a purist when it comes to these exchanges, though – my philosophy is that the gifts should truly be things that you already have, and would like to move along. Or possibly secondhand things from a vintage shop or thrift store. There is a carbon cost to manufacturing things, and the world has probably suffered enough from the carbon contributions of the manufacture of 25 million chia pets, or equivalent silly things.
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I wondered what happened to the raven this year.
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sorry vs
i forgot to grab my candycane striped spatula measuring cup cookie cutter combo set
mpr does have a wonderful classical station alongside radioheartland
but i also love blues guitar like robert johnson and missiopi john hurt
i have a b3 on my wishlist. i have a garage sale monster organ in a storage trailer and when it played it was magic but it would click on and off and needs the once over by an organ guy. i talked to schmidtt musics organ guy and he told me what to try but after 3 or 4 tries i had to pack it up for later attempts.
trumpet sax harp (im taking up harp) 24 string waist high model to start , harmonica , piano, cello, accorrdian stand up bass and violin are all in my music room waiting for me perfect the (no stand up bass yet just electric bass and accoustic bass guitar
i love marimba and vibes and just aqqired an instrument like a small tuba called a baritone
i miss my trombone.
whote elephants always pop into mind. this years was after listening to the radio and hearing this years most popular new gift is unclaimed undelivered unclaimed mail. someone said they could offer the stuff in their car trunk. i gave up cigars recently and was able to offer a fistfull of remaining cigars i hope to never take up again
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mpr has a wonderful classical guitar station alongside radioheartland
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How do you find it?? It’s hard enough to get to Radio Heartland at this point!
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After reading all the above, I’m reminded that some of the funniest gag gifts at Husband’s family’s Christmases were the framed pictures – they were just outrageous magazine ad photos, like the one of a sheep baring its teeth like a rabid dog. Someone would slap it into a cheap frame and wrap it up nicely. It would show up again next year, and the next… There are photos each year of the new recipient holding it.
You had to be there. 🙂
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