A White Elephant gift exchange, also known as Dirty Santa and Yankee Swap, is a popular gift-giving exchange that takes place during the holiday season. It involves gag gifts and some real gifts that are swapped and exchanged as you duke it out to see who can come away with the best gift.
So many White Elephants have come and gone, and the gifts these days are getting a little stale and reused. The best way to bring back that White Elephant flavor and excitement? Be the person to bring an animal to the gift exchange this year.
Gift exchanges are often one of my favorite parts of the holidays. Yes, Christmas has passed, but we are in that weird limbo between Christmas Day and New Year's Eve — it’s still the holidays to me.
For years my mother's side of the family has participated in a White Elephant that has resulted in some truly memorable gadgets and toys. Last Christmas, I secretly competed to win the gift I bought for myself, which was a $30 poker set. I walked away defeated, with a blender in hand.
This year I thought to myself, “How can I avenge my past self for not coming away with the poker set from last year?” The answer was staring me right in the eyes at the local pet store, Fish N’ Stuff, located at 4 Station St. in Athens. I think you can see where I am going with this.
You see, White Elephant gifts are perceived by many as being goofy and silly. For example, one person opens a box and finds a Whoopee cushion. Someone else exchanges their massage gun for it. It's all fun and games until someone unwraps a cage containing a 4-inch deathstalker scorpion capable of incapacitating a full-grown man with one sting.
Then an all-out frenzy ensues as every person involved in the exchange tries desperately to avoid coming away with the potentially dangerous and life-threatening scorpion. And, as we all know, White Elephants are completely anonymous, so absolutely nobody knows who brought the scorpion. That is, besides you, and you can finally receive justice for your historic poker set failure of 2022.
The greatest part about this hot new idea is that it does not have to be a scorpion. You can bring almost any kind of feral, untrained and not remotely docile animal to the exchange and see the same effect.
“But Drew, isn't that potentially dangerous for whoever gets stuck with it?” Absolutely it is. I guess if you want to be a real Debbie Downer this year you can switch the script in a more tame way by bringing a fish or a worm or two. That way the gift of a live animal becomes more desirable and many will attempt to swap for it. However, I personally recommend introducing more feral animals that will add shock and pizzazz to your holiday season.
Drew is a freshman studying communications at Ohio University. Please note that the opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect those of The Post. Want to Talk to Drew about his article? Tweet him @haughn_drew24.
