(no subject)

[cyrano]

So... tomorrow as part of work's holiday festivities is a White Elephant gift exchange. Which I'm pretty sure I don't understand.
Go out and buy something that you think nobody's going to want so that everybody can take home more stuff they don't need.
It feels... a little offencive, even. Like buying food that nobody likes and making them eat it when they're full and there are people outside going hungry.

Comments

[mnarra.livejournal.com]

I offer you a way to subvert the tradition to something more pleasing:

When in Corvallis, Jim would have a W.E. exchange every year. There was a brutally offensive plaster bust that made the rounds. Every. Year. People came to fear the bust. They loathed the bust. They told stories about how they nearly got the bust, or how they sluffed it off on someone the next year at the same W.E. exchange.

I got the bust three times. I disliked it enormously, but there were rules about the bust. One couldn't just throw the bust away. One couldn't give the bust outside of the crowd in which it originated -- I couldn't, for instance, mail it to my Aunt in Peru. And the giving had to be fair; I couldn't leave it on a doorstep, either. I rid myself of the bust one year, only to get it for my birthday in February, gave it away again, got it back as a housewarming gift that summer. Bad year for me. The stories were good, though.

So, to keep the history, we began putting names and dates on the bottom and back of the bust, to chronical it's loathsome journey through all our lives. The result is that the bust became somewhat valuable, as it showed tiny glimpses of the crowd and its interactions.

Go, find something loathsome, and sign it, date it, and print out some instructions to go with it. Make a tradition.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

If I had more time, I would consider this. Alas, I discovered this aspect of the tradition about 24 hours before the party.