White Elephant Gift Exchange Rules

The white elephant gift exchange game is a very entertaining game.  You are free to tinker with the rules as you see fit, but this is what has worked for me in the past: 

• Instruct each player to bring a fun gift to share for the game.  You can impose a maximum amount of money allowed to be spent, or even go as strict as to only allowing items that don't cost you any money. Have folks wrap their gift.  Hint: Sometimes the wrapping is a key ingredient! 
• Have everyone draw numbers out of a hat to determine the order for the opening of gifts.
• Each player may use his or her turn to either open an unwrapped gift OR take an already opened gift from another player, who then gets to choose a new unopened gift, after which the turn is passed to the next player.
• It's usually best to limit the number of times an opened item can be stolen.  A three theft maximum per gift has worked well for me.

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