I'm a Princess Among Thieves

I've never participated in a White Elephant gift exchange before. And I thought they'd disappeared along with the 1970s which is more or less the last time I'd heard a reference to them. So they're either back in vogue, or they never left and I fell asleep for about 30 years.

I went to a holiday party at The Urban Hive and after doing some extensive research on white elephants, because I didn't want to embarrass myself by bringing something totally inappropriate, like, say, well, actually there is no gift that would be inappropriate. Maybe some store-bought Tiffany jewelry, which would probably cause a bit of a kerfuffle during exchange time so that when your friends ask you about said party, you can honestly say it was a riot.

I scrounged around the house, per the internet's instructions, and wrapped my white elephant gift thusly:

You know all those scraps of gift wrapping that you save, just in case you have something small to wrap and you never do and you don't want to waste paper so it just piles up over the years? I figured this was the perfect time to use them up and sort of slap them together onto the box. I was going for "hideous", but the comments at the party were complimentary, so were they just being nice, or did I accidentally create something cool and funky?

Well, something that DID get high praise and demand for its recipe was the "appetizer" I brought: Spiced Pumpkin Dip. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of it in all its glory at the party, but I can certainly show you the carcass which I'm sure you'll find quite helpful.

Here is the mixing bowl I used to mix up the dip.

Doesn't that look yummy?

I've also included a picture of the leftover dip I brought home and the empty Ginger Snaps box that used to hold the cookies which were used for dipping.

So yeah, imagine cookies on the plate below, surrounding a bowl of delicious Spiced Pumpkin dip.

If you want the recipe, I found it on AllRecipes.com

 
So a White Elephant Gift Exchange is a total crap shoot. You can get something really nice, or you can get crap. Or something cheesy, but funny, like this:

 It's a Trump doll!

Knowing you, you're probably wondering what was in that hideously wrapped box I brought. Okay, okay, don't get your panties in a bundle - I brought a bottle of wine:

Jane (editor of MidLifeBloggers) opens the gift I brought

I don't know if you can see the label, but it says "Bitch". Somebody gave it to me and I wanted to pass on the love.

If you know how a White Elephant gift exchange works, then you also know that when it's your turn to pick a gift off the table, you can alternatively choose to steal a gift that's already been opened. So when it was Kari's turn to pick or steal...

Kari of Juniper James steals the Bitch wine.

And then when it was Monica's turn to select a gift (or steal one from someone else):

Wow, what a bunch of thieves I'm hanging around. Steal, steal, steal.

Another rule to this game was that an item could only be stolen two times. So Monica kept the wine for good.

I'm not much of a robber, so when it was my turn, I walked up to the table and selected a gift. This is what I opened:

You might be saying, gosh that's a pretty scarf/shawl/thing, but why is Jane modeling it? Well, I'll tell you why. It's because she STOLE it from me. Because someone had stolen her Bitch wine.

But then when it was Janna's turn, she stole the scarf from Jane, and wasn't afraid to show off her ill-gotten goods either.

Janna (of The Janna Monologues) pilfers the scarf from Jane

What a bunch of heartless heathens! I realize that by now you must think I have made some bad choices for friends if all they do is go around stealing things. And you're probably full of all kinds of questions, such as: "If Monica stole the Bitch wine from Kari, then what did Kari do?"

Well, Kari saw someone open a Bop It! earlier and went hunting that down. Do you know what a Bop It! is?

This is a Bop It! and its first receiver, Scott

But Scott didn't have the Bop It! any more. She found the guy that currently held it, clutching on to it for dear life and cornered her victim ready to tear it away from him:

"You'll have to pry this from my cold, dead hands, sister!"

She couldn't do it. She walked away, defeated, settling on something less.

Meanwhile, since someone had stolen MY scarf, I had to pick something else, so I returned to the table to unwrap this CD with a cool mix of music:

Yes, I realize that is not me, holding the CD. It's Jeremy. And do you know why it's Jeremy holding the CD? That's right. It's because he stole it from me.

So I went back to the table and opened a gift bag that included free movie passes and you know what happened after that? Yep. Stolen.

Grrrrr! I'm such a victim! Luckily, there was only one gift left on the table. It wasn't wrapped and people kept passing it over and I took it:

A musical snow globe

After being robbed several times, I left the party with a sense of being violated. And how fun is that? I can't wait for my next White Elephant gift exchange in a couple of weeks. After Christmas. Which is a great opportunity to offload more crap that I'll probably get in my stocking. How do you wrap coal, anyway?










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