“’Tis the season for giving…” blah blah bullshit! After last week’s company holiday party and IT pulling a jackass move, my department continued on with the festivities by hosting a white elephant gift exchange at a local sports bar. The rules? A twenty dollar max limit, anonymity, and two steals per gift.

My department began filing out of the office at 2:30p.m. By four o’ clock, two irish car bombs and three vodka crans later, the gift exchange began. There were a total of sixty people; all of which pulled numbers out of a stocking. The number represents the order in which that person is to select their white elephant gift. I pulled number fifty-eight. The usual strategy for white elephant gift exchanges is to have a turn as close to last so you have your dibs on gifts to steal. This year, our department VP kicked it off by starting with the highest number first. (Dammit. )

And so it starts…number sixty grabbed a gift from the table and opened up a ceramic jar of sugar cookies. Now my turn. While I like sugar cookies, I thought it best to pull a gift from the table. A fucking Monopoly board game set. (Yay? NOT!)

One by one, numbers were being called and the gifts were getting better. Meanwhile, I’m trying to model the fancy board game begging someone to steal it from me so I get another shot. We were down to number eighteen and finally! Someone actually wanted my Monopoly set! By then, all the booze gifts were out. I had my eye on the Russian Standard Vodka gift set that someone opened six turns ago and was solid! Couldn’t believe it had never been stolen yet, so I wasn’t out of the clear. I put the vodka under my chair in hopes everyone would forget about it.

Five numbers later I knew I was in for another jack move. The VP called out number four. Fucking great, number four was pulled by [Yakov], the angry Russian from QA. As he made his way to the bare gift table I avoided eye contact, hoping he wouldn’t remember I had the Russian Standard between my feet and under my chair. He stopped midway and changed his direction. Fuck! He began walking towards me. At that point I yelled, “I have to pee!” I grabbed the Russian Standard and began making my way to the ladies room to the right side of the bar. Just my luck, there was a line! The angry Russian caught up to me and grabbed the Russian Standard from me. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

Back to the gift table where two lonely gift bags stood and one envelope lay flat. I went for the envelope thinking it would be another Starbuck’s gift card, considering there were about ten of them. I slowly opened the envelope and pulled out a certificate of a twenty-five dollar contribution made on my behalf to a local charity. Did someone really think they can impose charity on someone and get away with it?!?! I just donated a box full of toys to the Salvation Army, throw me a bone Santa! I did my best to hold back the “what the fuck” expression I had on my face but failed miserably when I verbalized it. And I’ll say it again: WHAT.THE.FUCK?!?!

It took me about two more Grey Goose and crans to rid the look from my face. I took solace in knowing someone went home with the paper shredder I brought in. Karma is a bitch, especially during the holidays!

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Top 5 White Elephant Gifts (that appeared more than twice on the gift table):

1. Snuggies (4 total)
2. “The Hangover” DVD (6 total)
3. Starbucks Gift Cards (13 total)
4. The Slap Chop (3 total)
5. Obama Head Chia Pet (2 total)