Bad santa game rules

We're not sure where the word choice "Dirty Santa" originated but, it's meant to refer to game participants, the "Santas," stealing desirable gifts from each other. As opposed to Secret Santa, where participants are trying to guess who their personalized gifts are from. Some believe this gift exchange stems from Siam now Thailand where a very annoyed King of Siam gave courtiers, who had upset him, albino elephants.

Because the elephant was such a rare breed it required expensive care, and even though it may have appeared like a lavish gift, it was actually a nuisance for the courtier.

Hence the game of "White Elephant," evolved to gifting impractical items that are not easily disposed of and are often funny for an audience to witness. These gifts are obviously less desirable — unless you're in the market for any of those items — compared to funny socks, coffee mugs, and t-shirts, which always make their way into these games.

If your annual co-worker, supper club, or extended family get-together is tired of cheese balls and small talk, add this festivity to your Christmas party shenanigans. Like all games, white elephant has a few rules. However, the guidelines aren't completely set in stone — usually it's up to the host to set the official rules of play.

Our biggest tip for white elephant is to pay attention to how many times your favorite gifts have been stolen, especially if you're the lucky participant who drew the 1 slot. We're not sure if Rudolph and the rest of Santa's crew included this wild tradition in their reindeer games, but we know they'd definitely enjoy a little mischief!

This really refreshed my memory on the rules. Greeting Card Messages. Thank You. Get Well. Party Planning. Baby Showers. Mother's Day. Father's Day. New Years. Valentine's Day. Chinese New Year. Patrick's Day. Gift Ideas. Most popular in England. Gifts are encouraged to be either useful, comical or just plain worthless. Also involves "swapping", but usually the gifts are more practical. Involves multiple rounds of stealing. Stealing occurs less often because of the amount of gag gifts.

Read More From Holidappy. December 9th Is National Pastry Day. Related Articles. By Tatiana. By Suzanne Ridgeway. What would happen at the game and how would it all go down? First, you announce the date for the party. With our family, we usually meet on Chritmas day and exchange gifts after dinner.

Our office party however is a week or two prior to christmas during the weekend. Announce the date to your group and give them rules. The Dirty Santa rule you give to your guest should include maximum price to pay per gift, to make sure that the gifts are well wrapped and not possible to guess what they are. If you are involving the guest with food and drinks planning, this is a good time to make these arrangements as well more on this later.

It's good to make the announcement and invite everyone few weeks before the eevent. Then, remind your guests about the party few days before the date to make sure they are still all on board and remember. On the date of exchange, gather all the gifts in the center of the room.

Tear up small pieces of paper and write down numbers from 1 to 12 for our example of 12 players. Then have everyone pick out a random number from a bowl.

These numbers determine when it's your turn to open gifts. Now the person who got the number 1 gets to choose any gift and open it. The second person follows by either opening another gift or stealing from first person.

If they choose to steal from the first guest, now first guest can open yet another present but can not steal back the gift just stollen from them. Then it's third player turn. They get to open yet another gift that was not opened yet or steal from either first player or second. Get it? This process continues to the end untill all gifts have been opened. When planning a Dirty Santa Party, the organizers must set a maximum amount allowed to be spent on a gift.

The most common amount set in rules and spent happens to be 20 dollars. Unveiling a gift can be as fun as the gift itself, this is why as a trick, people love to wrap a gift many many times to make unwrapping pain in the butt for the recipient. Frustration on the face of the giftee can be priceless. About Rules Gifts.

In that case, you can follow this gameplay example The Rules These are the basic rules that you can use for your Dirty Santa gift exchange. Guest Is Out In 3 Steals If any participant gets stolen from 3 times, tey get to chose the final gift they want to open or steal and then they are out. Gift Is Out In 3 Steals If any certain gift gets taken away 3 times, the person stealing it the third time gets to keep it and is out of the game.

Motivational Gift It is not uncommon for the guests to bring not very well thought out gifts, that may not be very fun to open or exchange. Extra Chance One common variation is to allow the very first person a last chance to steal a gift, because if they opened an unwanted gift and never got a chance to replace it, they may feel like it was unfair.

Timed Round Yet another fun way to play the end of the game is to add in the element of timed excitement. Following An Example For a lot of people rules make much more sense when observed in real life example. Link to Dirty Santa Rules Are you the event organizer? Bacon Bandaids.

Ninja Disguise Shirt. Booger Bin. Middle Finger Socks.