White Elephant
Everyone brings one wrapped gift, takes a number, and on their turn opens a new one or steals one already open. Shuffle the turn order here, free.
Who goes first?
Add at least two names.
Run the whole game on one screen
Whose turn it is, who stole what from whom, which gifts are frozen, and who went home with what, in type big enough to read across the room. Once a game starts it needs no wifi.
Basic Event Pass
$2
- A gift swap for up to 100 people
- Also opens a party room for 20
- No ads, no subscription
Pro Event Pass
$8
- A gift swap for up to 100 people
- Also opens a party room for 60
- No ads, no subscription
Both passes run the same game for up to 100 people. They differ only in the party room each one also opens, for the games before or after the swap.
One payment for one party. The pass is emailed to you as a link, and it runs as many games as you like for 48 hours from the first one. Refundable until it is first used. The terms say so in more words.
Already bought one? Open the link in the email it came in, on the device that will run the game.
How to play
- 1Agree a budget, and everyone brings one wrapped gift with no name on it. Pile them on a table.
- 2Draw numbers for the turn order: shuffle the names above, or pass the phone round and draw from the hat.
- 3Number 1 opens a gift and holds it up for the room. That is their turn.
- 4Every number after that either opens a new gift or steals one that has already been opened.
- 5Whoever is stolen from goes again straight away. The turn only passes to the next number when somebody opens a new gift.
- 6A gift freezes on its third steal and stays where it is. Nobody can take back the gift just taken from them.
- 7When every gift is open, Number 1 may swap theirs for any gift that is not frozen. Then it is over.
How to play it well
Play the final swap. Without it Number 1 has the worst seat in the room: they open a gift blind, with nothing to steal, and then spend the rest of the game watching it get taken or ignored. The last number has the best seat, because they choose with every gift on the table. Giving Number 1 one swap at the very end, with no steal-back, fixes both at once, and it is the reason nobody groans when they draw a 1.
The mistake big groups make is losing count. Somewhere around the fifteenth turn nobody can say whether the candle has been stolen twice or three times, the person holding it insists it is frozen, and the room spends ten minutes on an argument nobody can settle. Decide who keeps the tally before the first gift is opened. A sticky note on each gift with a mark for every steal is enough for a dozen people; past twenty, that is the job the game runner above was built for.
Bring something three people will want, not something one person will laugh at. A joke gift gets its laugh once, at the unwrapping, and then sits on a lap for the rest of the game because nobody steals it. The stealing is the game. The gifts that make a swap memorable are the ones that change hands four times: good chocolate, a decent mug, a cheap gadget that is better than it looks.
Open facing the room. Half the fun of a steal is the room seeing it coming, and a gift opened in somebody’s lap is a gift half the room never saw. Hold it up and say what it is, especially at a table of thirty where the back row cannot read a label.
Size the rules to the room. Freezing on the third steal is right for most groups. With twenty-five or more, freeze on the second, or allow one steal a turn, or the game outlasts the party. With six people, try letting gifts never freeze: the chains get long and loud, which is the point when there are only six of you.
Is it the same as Yankee Swap or Dirty Santa?
Yes. White Elephant, Yankee Swap, Dirty Santa and Steal-a-Gift are one game under different names. Yankee Swap is the name you hear most in New England, and those swaps lean towards gifts people actually want. Dirty Santa is the name you hear most in the South. White Elephant comes from a story about the kings of Siam giving a sacred white elephant to a courtier they wanted rid of: it could not be put to work, could not be given away, and cost a fortune to feed. Nobody has found a record of a king actually doing it, but it explains why the gifts are so often gloriously useless.
What changes from group to group is the house rules, not the name: how many steals freeze a gift, whether you can steal straight back, and whether Number 1 gets the last swap. Those three are worth agreeing out loud before anyone opens anything, because every person in the room learned the game at a different party.
It is not Secret Santa. Secret Santa gives each person one name to buy for, and the draw is the whole point. In White Elephant nobody buys for anybody: the gifts go in one pile and the stealing decides who goes home with what.
Variations worth knowing
Keep them wrapped. Everyone takes or steals a wrapped gift, and nothing is opened until the last turn. Stealing becomes a bet on the shape of the box, which suits a group that likes the joke gifts.
Heads or tails. Each turn starts with a coin: heads, open a new gift; tails, steal one. It takes the decision away from the people who would agonise over it, and it speeds up a big swap.
The dice game. Everybody opens a gift first, then the dice go round, and each number means swap left, swap right, steal, or pass. Good for a family with small children, who find open-or-steal decisions agonising.
Freeze on holding, not stealing. Some groups count owners rather than steals: a gift is dead once its third person is holding it. It lands in the same place one steal later, so pick one way of counting and say which.
Common questions
- How many times can a gift be stolen in White Elephant?
- Usually three: on its third steal a gift freezes and stays with whoever took it. Plenty of groups freeze on the second steal instead, which keeps a big swap moving, and a few never freeze at all, which works for six people and drags for thirty. Agree it before the first gift is opened, not when somebody is reaching for the candle.
- What are the rules for Number 1?
- Number 1 opens the first gift with nothing to steal, which makes it the worst seat in the game unless your group plays the final swap. Once every gift is open, Number 1 may swap theirs for any gift that is not frozen, and nobody gets to steal it back. That one rule turns the worst number into the best.
- Can you steal back a gift that was just stolen from you?
- Not straight away. Whoever loses a gift goes again at once, and the usual rule is that they cannot take back the gift that was just taken from them. They can steal something else or open a new gift. Without that rule, two people can trade one gift back and forth for the rest of the evening.
- How long does a White Elephant game take?
- Allow one to two minutes a person. Ten people is about fifteen minutes, thirty people is closer to an hour. Steals are what make it long, so a big group that needs to finish on time can freeze gifts on the second steal or allow only one steal in each turn.
- How much should a White Elephant gift cost?
- Whatever the group agrees, said out loud before anybody shops. Twenty to thirty dollars is a common range for friends and family, and offices often set it lower. The number matters less than everybody keeping to it: one gift far above the limit wins every steal and makes the rest look thin.
- Do I need the paid game runner?
- Not for a small group. Ten people with the shuffler above and a host paying attention will be fine. The runner earns its keep at a big office swap, roughly twenty people and up, where nobody can remember whether the candle has been stolen twice or three times and the argument about it takes longer than the turn.
- Does the game runner need wifi?
- Once, to start. After that the whole game lives in the browser it was started in and never talks to the internet again, so a venue with bad wifi cannot stop it. It survives a refresh too, and the names and gifts typed into it never leave that device.
- What is the difference between White Elephant and Secret Santa?
- In Secret Santa everybody is given one person to buy for, and the gifts are personal. In White Elephant nobody buys for anyone in particular: every gift goes in one pile, and the stealing decides who ends up with what. Plenty of offices do both, Secret Santa for the team and White Elephant at the party.