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| Examples of White Elephant gifts to be used in the gift exchange of that name. |
December is considered an important holiday season for many cultural groups. For Western cultures these holidays are often commonly host to various gift exchange rituals. Each cultural group has its own specific rules concerning these rituals (e.g., St. Nicholas Day in Germany; Epiphany La Befana in Italy; Kwanzaa; Hanukkah; and more), demonstrating the importance of gift exchanges for these groups. Today’s blog post will address another gift exchange ritual that exists among Americans: the White Elephant gift exchange. This blog post will address what this ritual is, its origins, history, and how and why it is celebrated today.
The White Elephant gift exchange goes by many other names. These include Yankee Swap or Evil Santa. Ultimately, all of these describe a game wherein unwanted, ridiculous, useless, or “gag”/prank gifts are anonymously and randomly exchanged within a group. There are variations to the rules. The most common rules require participating individuals agree to partake in the gift exchange, followed by each acquiring (by way of regifting or purchasing) the “gift” to be exchanged. Group members are assigned numbers at random, and from there each member selects a random gift without knowing which gift was provided by the other members. Often gifts can be stolen among group members, with a specific number of “steals” allowed before a gift unable to be stolen further. Group members may informally compete with each other by way of unspoken rules, such as who has the most ridiculous gift, the most sought after gift, or some other value as prescribed by group. Ultimately, the White Elephant gift exchange is a play on traditional gift giving, which emphasizes being thoughtful and deliberate in choosing a gift. Instead, the White Elephant gift exchange parodies traditional gift exchanges by emphasizing useless of the gifts and the ridiculousness of gift exchange rituals, thereby removing some of the stress of the more serious rituals.
This emphasis on ridiculousness is infused in the name White Elephant, which conjures up odd images since elephants are not naturally white. The origins of the name are tied to a distorted and false story that claims the Thai king would gift his subjects a white elephant, a gift of great honor but also extreme cost since keeping the animal alive was extremely expensive. This is actually not quite how the story really goes.
The real origins of the phrase White Elephant come from the poor economic decisions of the American government in the 1850s. At that time Britian, who was considered a social, political, and economic rival of the United States, showed economic interests in the country of Siam (presently called Thailand). Fear of missing out on whatever trade deal the British were negotiating with Siam monarchy led the American government to send representatives to the King of Siam to negotiate their own trade deal. Unfortunately, the American representatives knew little about what the British were negotiating for, and they knew even less about the culture and traditions of the Siam monarchy. This led to a lot of ethnocentric reactions toward the friendly gestures and actions the Siam monarch made to the American representatives. The Siam monarch presented various gifts to the representatives, which were meant to secure the friendship and goodwill between the leaders of both nations. The American representatives could not accept the gifts as per American laws and customs, and they felt that the gifts that were offered were useless. This led to the gifts being called “white elephant gifts,” referring to useless and unwanted gifts.
The term “White Elephant gift” was eventually adopted by Americans as the name for barters or exchanges among peers. It was commonplace for Americans to trade items of equal value for various purposes, and in the 1890s these exchanges became codified and ritualized parts of the holiday season. Several newspapers published the rules of engagement for “swap parties” as they were popularly called at that period, although according to a New York Times article it was the publication of the Delphos Daily Herald in 1896 that is credited with renaming the “swap party” to “White Elephant gift exchange.”
Today, White Elephant gift exchanges are fun ways to share gifts and celebrate the holiday season in a minimally stressful way. These types of gift exchanges are particularly popular among those who do not know each other well, although they are just as entertaining for those who do know each other quite well. The White Elephant gift exchange showcases the importance of gift giving rituals not just within the holiday season but among Americans across time.
Works Cited
Bullen, Ross. "“This Alarming Generosity”: White Elephants and the Logic of the Gift." American Literature (2011): 747–773.
Herrmann, Gretchen. "Machiavelli Meets Christmas: The White Elephant Gift Exchange and the Holiday Spirit." The Journal of Popular Culture (2013): 1310-1329.
Swilley, Esther, Kelley O. Cowart and Leisa R. Flynn. "An examination of regifting." Journal of Consumer Behaviour (2014): 251-261.
Wright, Jennifer Ashley. "A Brief History of the White Elephant Party." New York Times 23 November 2022.
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