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Tired of thinking what to play in office during the Christmas

By: Thomas Bronson

There are dozens of fun office gift exchange games people can play during the Christmas season. Officemates might have a "secret Santa" gift exchange or a popular "white elephant" gift exchange. All are popular and always fun, provided the rules are clear and everyone understands them.



The White Elephant gift exchange has always been one of the best and most interesting office games for all festive seasons. All games are guided and bounded by rules of their own and the White Elephant gift exchange game is no exception. However, there are no precise rules that must be followed exactly to maximize the fun value of the game. Variations can be incorporated into the games to suit certain conditions of the office such as number of participants, budget and so forth. Each and every one of the participants must purchase a gift not exceeding certain value such as a set dollar amount or within a range of values from ten dollars to thirty dollars; which depend very much on the policy or requirements of the team. The suggested gift selection should be an interesting object that can possibly amuse the team and something every one will enjoy, therefore, anything that is very practical will make a bad pick.



The rules for playing the White Elephant gift exchanges are easy and straight forward and they go like this: Firstly, you have to make sure that you get ready a set of numbers that are indicated with the presents numbers and mix it well in a box or a Santa hat (during Christmas). Each of the participants must draw out a number each from the box or hat and the game shall start with the person drawing out the lucky number 1. The first person has the opportunity to be the first to choose a gift for him or herself and keep the gift. The second person with the number 2 will be next to decide whether he or she likes to steal the first present from the first person or to choose a different gift. Remember that any presents that are opened can be subject to stealing and each present can only be stolen three times. Therefore, before the participant decides to keep the gift and not to steal the first gift, he or she can open the gift. This goes on until everyone receives a gift in the end.



At the end of the game, the person who was the first to open a present can steal a gift if they choose, since they didn't have an opportunity earlier.



In this game there's always one gift that everyone wants and will steal over and over again. What makes it fun is trying to figure out who is going to get the most coveted gift. In some cases, people can end up with the gift they brought.



Originally the "white elephant" gift exchange was a way for people to "regift" or give someone a gift they themselves received and don't want. For a fun twist, you could ask people to bring something from their home like that, or you can require they purchase something (with the aforementioned limit on spending).



There are plenty of variations of Secret Santa game created or altered by offices and have been made very popular. One variation of the games which you can adopt would be to limit the dollar value on the gift and get every participant to make a Santa list. With that list for Santa, you can determine a aforementioned gift value such as five or ten dollars and what this means would be that every participant must not list items more than that five or ten dollars on their little Santa list.



All the Santa lists will be stored in a hat or box so that each participant will have to draw out a list and get ready to do shopping for that person. While the recipients of the gifts will not know who will be shopping for their lists, the participant (shopper) will know the person (recipient) whom they will be shopping for. The Secret Santa must make sure that they remain secretive when delivering the gift to the recipients in the office on that very day. The decision maker of the games can either decide to allow the participant to sign or initial on the gift or not to leave any traces at all. While the former will create a sense of anonymity among one another, the person choosing the latter may sign off the gift if they like to get and send thank-you messages to one another for their gifts.

Article Source: Free Content Articles Directory

Thomas Bronson's main focus is in the gift industry, specifically holiday gift baskets. His trademark ecommerce website GiftBasketsAffair.com offers a wide range of signature gift basket ideas such as gift baskets for women, Christmas gift baskets, Valentine gift baskets, Wedding gift baskets and so on.

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