Saturday, December 24, 2005

hating white elephants

i am officially hating, hating white elephants and all its incarnations.

i just got back from a party hosted by a friend and his brother. they invited both their different sets of friends so these friends can meet each other. my friend j called me this morning to tell me that there was going to be a 'white elephant' in the dinner party. i told myself, 'oh no, not again.'

just like i am officially a non-winner (i refuse to use the word 'loser') in any (or all) of the raffles out there (another entry), i also end up as one of the non-winners every (single) time i join a white elephant.

why it is called a 'white elephant' in the first place is unbeknownst to me. the concept is simple: it is gift-grabbing.

this spices up the boring gift exchanges in the office. or any other party for that matter. the bottomline with these white elephants: every single participant goes home with the gift that s/he likes. everybody happy. except me.

i went to the party knowing full well what my close friends brought. they were great gifts (ceiling was $30) but when it was my turn to open/grab a gift, do i choose the great gifts? abso-freaking-lutely not. i choose the sealed ones, the wrapped ones, those boxes/paper bags screaming for me to pick them. and more often than not, i end up with gifts that i do not want. always.

tonight was no exception. to make matters worse, i picked the number "2" piece, which means that i was going to be the second person who's gonna open a gift. the only gift i could grab was that of the person who picked "1". but why should i grab her gift when there are 15 other gifts there waiting for me?

i know, i know. what i am rambling about is totally not in sync with the spirit of christmas. but since i have been severly unlucky with white elephants slash gift-grabbing, i am swearing off all kinds of exchange gifts. for now. until next christmas season.

now, excuse me for i need to use my homedics hydragel rechargeable massager. oh amazon, how dare you screw me like this!

[edited to add: i am swearing off all kinds of exchange gifts and its variations. for life.]

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

merry christmas old friend!

was shocked to read that in your version of the white elephant game you've to buy new gifts.

the concept of the game is precisely to bring gifts you received previously that are well white elephants. hence the name of the game. buying new gifts totally destroy the notion eh.

di bale you're a winner friend pa rin.

Anonymous said...

ok, white elephant di ba means any object that is so big to be unnoticed but is nevertheless often unnoticed?

and abt your las vegas pic, don't you watch las vegas the series? or even ocean's 11/12? they don't allow you to take pictures inside the casino!!!!!

mayette's comment enlightened me though.

massage away!

momar said...

i may have sounded a bit bitter in that post. i am normally not like that. i'd still give gifts to my friends but no more gift-grabbing/white elephants for me.

i used to just call it 'gift-grabbing' but somehow people stuck with white elephant without knowing what the concept originally meant.

regarding the pic: i was taking a photo of the manny pacquiao poster, not the casino floor. hehehe. i just didn't like the gurad minding me since i was at least ten feet away from the slots and tables. oh well.