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White (Pink) Elephant (Jaguar) Party

Last night was the White Elephant party (that kinda sounds like a band name... or album)... or as I said when I got to the door "is this the pink jaguar party?"

The dude said "Why yes it is!"

And in I went.

It was fun.  The first couple of minutes I stood awkwardly at the door while everyone else knew each other and hopped around with plates of food and buzzed in conversation.  Eventually someone offered to take my coat (and my gift).

I moved around the room and finally found the 3 or 4 people I had met last Sunday evening who invited me to the party (more people I also met last Sunday eventually arrived).  Well... we all chatted and snacked on lots of snack-esk-y types of foods.  All very good and tasty.  There were also lots of treats... hmmm not treats, that makes it sound like cat or dog type of treats... there were desserts.  And yes, they were all so super delicious!  I love food... soooooooo any time there's grub I'm always very delighted.

Well it was fun.  After lots of usual party conversation and snack-age I was quite parched... So I made my way to the drinks table.  Just poured myself a good old fashioned cup of 7up.

The conversation and food and all went on for a good amount of time.  I think maybe about an hour and some change... but I wasn't keeping an eye on my watch.  Then everyone started gathering in the living room ish area.

We started with some Xmas Carols... one guy accompanied with the guitar and he kinda led everyone with one heck  of a voice.  This dude REALLY can sing!  I meant to talk to him about seeing if he had a band or anything.  Or played open mics.  He was good.

After that we started into the White Elephant part of the party.  Now I've never been to a White Elephant Party... but it was interesting.  If you don't know what one is here's how it works:

So everyone brings a gift.  It can be good or bad or ugly... or pretty.  Then you get your name written on a slip of paper and put in a basket/hat when you drop off the gift.  Then they draw names from the hat/basket/basket shaped hat/hat shaped basket.

As they read off names the first people pick gifts.  Then after the first one is picked the second one and everyone after can either pick or steal.  As you get into it and later people start looking at the gifts around the suck ones get offered up like you are on the Price is Right and the good gifts get hidden away by their current owners hoping someone won't snap it up.

There was a REALLY cool Charlie Brown light up mini xmas tree thing that got stolen about 5 times.  Everyone wanted that one.

Well ok so there are other little rules like no double stealing back and every 3rd person has to pick a gift... other wise everyone would just keep stealing and the game would go on for ages.

If you get stolen from you have to go back into the gift pool and fish more for a gift.

So it's interesting because you can go from having the most stellar gift of the whole shebang to... you got coal (uuuhhh ohhhhh).

So it's one of those things where you're in the lead... and then all of a sudden.... last place.  Although it's just all for kicks anyways.  The fun is just playing the game and not what you end up with.  It's always nice to end up with something cool.  But that's just how it goes.

I brought something my mom prepared that she had around her house.  They were scented gold ornaments (not actual gold)... and I ended up with a waffle maker.

So the joke of the night was I have to make everyone that was at the party waffles at some point.

My initial pick was a shirt and a USB cable powered mug warmer thing.  But someone stole it from me... so I then just decided to grab the waffle maker because the guy that picked it said he already had a waffle maker... then he took a giant 12 days of xmas candle from a girl... and then she picked a gift... I think it was a book but I forget exactly which book.

Well after that wrapped up... everyone kinda chatted for a little while longer and off we went to our respective homes to climb into comfy beds and dream the night away.