My Struggle With White Elephants

It being that time of year again, we’ve just scheduled our annual office white elephant gift exchange. The guidelines remain very simple. You go out and buy something for $25 or less and it should ideally be something humorous, something you’d not ordinarily give as a gift, and something that has some purpose other than serving merely as a ridiculous gift nobody would ever really want. You wrap them up, leave no “To” or “From” on the card, and we take them all to our boardroom where, with any luck, we’re also having a potluck lunch because we all collectively remembered to bring something.

We draw numbers from a small planter (we’re not big on hats and don’t tend to keep them around). The gifts are drawn for in order, i.e., person number one chooses the first gift. Then person number two, etc. Beginning with person number two, they can either select an unwrapped gift, or ‘steal’ a gift from someone who’s already opened theirs, in which case the person stolen from gets to choose a new one. This can be good, or it can be disappointing. Last year Diane chose to ‘steal’ the t-shirt I’d been gifted with, an XXL that would have made a great nightgown and I appreciated the sentiment it expressed that, “Due to the Economy, all I got for Christmas Was This T-shirt” emblazoned across its front. I wound up drawing the last package available, which was bubble bath, and unless I’m mistaken I’m still working on the bubble bath from the previous year and haven’t even opened it yet, an entire year later. So for me, last year was not as good as previous years, in particular the year I separated and happened to select the “Prince Charming Kit” (I still have it) which was a life-size rubber toad wearing a tuxedo with a bright red lipstick tucked into his collar and “Prince Charming Kit” on a tag around his neck. Or the year I got the “Cafeteria Lady” ‘action figure’ because Liz had heard enough of my mocking someone in our employee cafeteria I referred to as ‘the soup Nazi’ because she refused to let me have extra vegetables with a cold sandwich, saying I could only have rice, which made no sense to me then or now.

Liz doesn’t frequent the best place to find white elephant gifts, the “As Seen on TV” section of Walgreen’s, but lucky for her, I do. So when I stopped in there on Friday night and found myself in that particular aisle (I always find myself in that particular aisle, as if it’s a requisite for any visit to Walgreen’s to leave the store not just with what I came in for but with something ridiculous I’d seen on TV that I’d probably never use but suddenly felt almost insanely compelled to possess), standing in front of “The Snuggie: The Blanket With Sleeves!” I hurriedly dialed Liz, and she said of course, pick one up for her and she’d give it as her gift. It came in a leopard print or a zebra print, and she had no preference. So I selected the leopard print, then thought about how much the temperatures were dropping and how truly cozy and comfortable that lady on the box looked, and how truly awesome it would be to go home, turn on the fireplace….and watch TV in a blanket with sleeves.

So the zebra print went into the cart as well, and by the time I found the toothpaste I’d come in for the cart also contained “The Snuggie for Dogs: Keeps your Body Warm And Your Paws Free!” and knowing how important it was for Basil to keep her paws free, felt it was $9.99 well spent and would also, alternatively, make a nice white elephant gift. Another $9.99 went on an “Unbelievably soft and luxurious throw blanket!” because in all honesty, who can have too many of those? What a great white elephant gift!

Herein lies the problem.

Once home, I promptly opened the zebra Snuggie, found it every bit as comfortable as the box promised and decided I’d give the dog Snuggie as a white elephant. Until, that is, about five minutes later when I decided the dog on the box looked an awful lot like Basil, which was probably a sign it should go to her. We’d been cuddled up in our Snuggies, an episode of “Entourage” on the DVR for maybe ten minutes, when I decided that “Unbelievably soft and luxurious throw blanket!” would really go well with the couch pillows in the living room, so that was opened, too (and really did look good). So you clearly understand my dilemma. Having purchased three possible white elephant gifts to give away, I was now down about $34 and didn’t have anything at all to give away.

This was completely unacceptable.

So Saturday night after work I found myself in Walgreen’s again, deliberating in the “As Seen On TV” aisle, concluding there were really only two products left that: a) I hadn’t already bought for myself, and b) someone might get some use out of. One was a knock off of ‘Yoga Toes’, but in thinking about it, they were outdated. I’d bought a pair last year, Casey had bought a pair, and Diane had, too. That left the enormous box of “Sham Wow”s, the yellow towels that are purported to absorb the contents of a small swimming pool and last approximately forever, at a bargain price of only $20. So I bought them, vowing not to keep them for myself. Honestly, what in the world would I do with a Sham Wow, no matter how amazing? Surely it would be more prudent to just gift them and move on with life (not to mention a different aisle in the store).

The problem is, the gift exchange isn’t for two more weeks. That’s a very long time to keep a box of Sham Wows on my kitchen counter, even though it is in one of those translucent bags from Walgreen’s. I can still see the pictures on the outside of the box, and the one that jumps out at me the most is the wringing wet dog, the dog who looks not happy, not thrilled, but positively blissful to find himself being dried by a Sham Wow after being unceremoniously dumped in the tub and scrubbed with stinky people shampoo. Every time I look at it, I recall Basil’s dislike of bathing and it feels like a right move to me to make it up to her by opening that box of Sham Wows and giving her one of her very own. Maybe two. She’s kind of that special and that spoiled.

The problem being, that would leave me completely without a white elephant gift, and also with no further options on coming up with one. I’d be down, literally, to the Pedi Egg and gag gift or not, the ladies would disown me if I gave them something to shave dead skin off their feet. So I’m vowing to stay strong, and not open the box. It’s only a couple of weeks away, I’m thinking.

The dog on the box was probably staring at a rib eye when they took the picture anyway, explaining that look of absolute bliss. That’s my story and unless I want to be kicked out of an annual potluck for being gift-less, I’m sticking to it.