White Elephant Rules

White elephant rules, step by step

1. Everyone brings one wrapped gift under the agreed spending limit, and the gifts go in one pile.
2. Draw numbers to set the order. Slips of paper in a bowl work, or let the tool above deal them.
3. Player one opens a gift from the pile and shows it to everyone. Their turn ends.
4. Each next player chooses: open a new gift from the pile, or steal a gift someone has already opened.
5. A player whose gift is stolen picks again right away. They open a new gift or steal a different one, but not the gift that was just taken from them. Then play moves on to the next number.
6. The game ends when the last gift is open. In many groups, player one then gets one final chance to swap.

Steal limits and the last turn

White elephant has no official rulebook, so every group plays its own version. Settle these two points before the first gift is opened and you avoid most arguments.

Steal limits

Most groups let a gift be stolen two or three times. After the last allowed steal, it stays with whoever holds it and cannot be taken again. Some groups add a second rule: a gift can be stolen only once per turn, so a chain of steals cannot loop back to the same gift.

The final turn

Player one opened a gift with nothing to steal, which is a bad deal. Many groups fix it by giving player one a last turn after the final gift is open: keep the gift, or swap it for any gift that is still in play.

White elephant variations

• Dice. Players roll on their turn and follow a rules sheet the host writes, with numbers for open, steal, swap with a neighbor or pass. The sheet is the host’s own; there is no standard one.
• Left, right story. Everyone holds a gift while the host reads a story full of the words left and right, and gifts move one seat each time. You keep whatever you hold at the end.
• Wrapped until the end. Everyone picks a wrapped gift first. Then all the gifts are opened at once, and the stealing starts.
• Theme. Every gift fits one theme, such as mugs, books or something homemade.
• Video call. Each person presents their gift on the call, and nobody sends a gift until the swapping is over.

Spending limit and what to bring

Most groups land on a limit of about $20 to $30. Say the number in the invitation, and say whether gag gifts are welcome. A table where half the gifts are jokes and half are useful works, as long as everyone knows that before they shop.

If you want your gift to be fought over, bring something several people would use, such as a good blanket, a board game or nice coffee. A joke gift gets the bigger laugh and usually stays where it lands.

Yankee swap, Dirty Santa and where the name comes from

The game goes by several names. Yankee swap is the usual one in New England, and Dirty Santa is common in the South. The rules are the same.

A white elephant is a possession that costs more trouble than it is worth. The popular story says kings of Siam gave white elephants to courtiers they wanted to ruin, since the sacred animals were expensive to keep and could not be put to work. There is no record of it ever happening. The phrase was in English use by 1851, and by 1911 American swap parties were commonly called white elephant parties.

Frequently asked questions