Two fun ways to exchange gifts

As the holiday season continues, gifts are being exchanged the costs go up. There are two ways to exchange gifts with your friends that can lower costs. It’s not that you aren’t willing to spend money on your friends but the total becomes over $300 dollars for all your friends, not a small amount for high schoolers.

 

White Elephant. A group of friends each buy an item(s) based on a theme (an imported product, lotions, favorite thing, plushies) and a minimum/maximum cost. Then on a selected date, everyone brings their gifts to exchange. Everyone sits in a circle and is assigned a random number. The items are placed into the center of the circle. People, based on their random number, choose a gift from the middle. If a person likes a gift that another person chose, they can steal it from the other person. The other person will then pick another item from the middle. People try to buy the best gift so their gift is the one people always want to steal. There is a lot of laughter and suspense involved.

Secret Santa. A group of friends put their names into a hat and everyone picks a name from the hat. The name that a person picks is the person they are buying gifts for. They are the Secret Santa of the person they picked and will try to scout out what their person wants for the holidays. The budget for the gift is usually a larger amount since the group won’t be giving normal sized gifts to each other anymore. On a chosen date, everyone gets together and exchanges gifts. Usually everyone sits in a circle. A person is randomly chosen to start to give their gift. They begin by describing who they are giving the gift to, “This person is super sweet and tall and likes the song pineapple pen.” And then they give the gift to their person. The person who receives the gift continues the exchanging by describing their person. Everyone goes until everyone receives their gift! Secrecy and stealth are vital to this being exciting and surprising.

 

These two ways of exchanging gift add even more fun into an already exciting holiday season. Hope you receive the best gift ever!

 

Happy Holidays!