Gift Giving Guy

Did you have a holiday office party with a gift exchange today? Money Management International, a debt counseling organization, bets you did. MMI observed that office parties often fall on the third Thursday in December. To capitalize on office parties and encourage regift exchanges, MMI created National Regifting Day, which is today. According to their 2007 survey, 41 percent of regifters choose co-workers for regifts.

Sure enough, my workplace held a Christmas potluck today with a white elephant gift exchange. The rules are simple.

• Everyone knows upfront you may regift. (I frown on secret regifting.) So the gift might be a white elephant — that is, something used that you no longer want. Or you might buy a new gift for $10 or less.

• If you wish to participate, you bring a wrapped gift. You receive a number in exchange.
• A host picks numbers at random. If your number is called, you can pick a gift and unwrap it for all to see. Or you can steal someone else’s gift. The person who lost the gift marches up to the gift pile to unwrap another.
• There are two rules on gift stealing. First, gifts can only stolen twice. After two steals, the gift stays with the recipient. Second, a person who lost a gift cannot steal it back.
• The game ends when the gifts are gone. Once the game is over, there is no more stealing, but trades or giveaways are encouraged.

Popular gifts (based on steals) were a first-generation iPod Shuffle, bags of Starbucks coffee, a wireless mouse, Build Your Own Stonehenge kit and an over-sized calculator. My own quirky gift — an unopened “cubicle warfare” catapult I bought from ThinkGeek.com in 2006 — ended up with a grateful recipient.