Yankee Swap...

I'm wondering if Blogging at work falls under the auspices of misuse of company equipment? If so, I promise that I'll make up the time :)

So last week was the week of Christmas parties, including two Yankee Swaps. For those of you who don't know what a Yankee Swap here are the rules:

1 - Create numbers 1 - through how many gifts are being played

2 - Number 1 chooses a gift and displays it for everyone to see

3 - Player 2 goes and chooses a gift, they can either unwrap it or swap it with player # 1, and player#1 unwraps that gift.

4 - Player number three either chooses a gift to unwrap or takes player #1 or #2s gift. If they take a gift from somebody, then that person can either take another gift or go the pile and unwrap a gift. (I should mention we only allow each gift to be swapped once per round).

5- the above continues until the last person chooses and all swapping from the last round is complete.

6 - Player #1 then swaps their gift with whomever they choose.

So we had a Yankee Swap at work on Thursday and it was crazy. We were all wrangling over who got what liquor gift set. So every round the bottles of booze switched hands from person to person. I finally ended up with a Fleece New England Patriot's Blanket. Alas, no booze here. I think our work swap was the most vicious I had ever seen in my life. And of course, there were those who particpated who were disgusted with our hunt for the most premium liquor. Apparently somebody complained that 80% of the gifts were bottles of booze. I mean, come on, this is Rhode Island, not Utah...

I went to another Holiday Party yesterday and we had a very mild Yankee Swap. People were too nice. Not me, I handed a stack of picture frames right over for a bottle of Disaronno and two glasses. Pictures frames nice...Disaronno much nicer :)

Now what sucks about Yankee Swaps is that you always have the person who brings the crappy gift. Like the year before last I ended up with Gel Socks and a pumice stone for scraping feet. Who brings that as a gift? I can't even re-gift that I would feel so corny. Then last year I ended up with the gross box from Hickory Farms of Non-Pareils. I spent $35.00 on a gift last year and ended up with a gross box of mints that probably cost $2.00. I re-gifted the non-pareils.

So new Yankee Swap rule for work parties... You have to put your name on the gift you give. That way everyone knows what you brought and the person who brought the Regis Philbin CD can be shamed into not participating in future years.