[Note: I don’t know any of the people in the above image (click on it to see it where I first did, in its original form). I found this Santa quite unnerving, though.]
The RAMH regular who goes by the handle “whaddayamean” commented yesterday on a post from back in November. She referred there to a game called a Yankee Swap, which I gather to be the same one enjoyed by The Missus’s family for many years. Down here, though, it’s called the “Dirty Santa” gift exchange.
The idea is that everyone attending a holiday get-together brings a wrapped gift. But you don’t know who will get your gift; indeed, you might even wind up with it yourself.
All the gifts are piled in the center of the room, and everyone draws a number from a hat or bowl. Then you go around the room, in numerical order, as follows:
Aside: in the instructions below, I’ll drop for readability’s sake my usual obsessively gender-neutral practice of s/he-ing all the pronouns. It was starting to make even me crazy.
Player #1 picks any gift at all from the pile, and opens it. Everyone oohs and aahs, or laughs, and then things get really interesting…
#2 may also pick a gift from among those remaining in the pile. In this case, play moves to #3. But #2 may choose instead to “steal” the gift which #1 opened. In this case, #1 returns to the pile of gifts, and opens another.
Okay, now it’s #3’s turn. She may pick from the pile (you’re seeing a pattern, right?). OR, if desired, she may steal either #1’s gift, OR #2’s. The stealee can now steal someone else’s gift, or return to the dwindling mound of gifts for a fresh one. And so on, and so on.
As with any good game, some caveats are in place to keep things (haha) civilized:
- No one can immediately steal back something which someone stole from her. She can, however, steal it back later. (For example, on #2’s turn above, if 2 steals from 1, 1 has ONLY the option of selecting a new gift. But if 3 then steals from 1, the latter is free to take back whatever 2 stole from him.) (You’re following this, right?)
- No gift can be claimed by more than three owners: the third person who acquires it (even if she has stolen it back) keeps it, for good.
- After all gifts have been opened from the pile, player #1 can then force someone to trade gifts with him.
- Finally, at least around here, they cap the value of each gift: it can’t have cost more than $15.
Part of the fun of the whole thing, for me anyhow, is actually acquiring the gift to bring. You can go practical — bringing a kitchen implement or set of screwdrivers, for instance. Or you can go wacky or enigmatic. (One year, I brought a carved wooden hand, a sort of ornament or decor item, which stood on the wrist. It didn’t do anything. It just stood there.) Or you can opt for the fun approach — bringing a game or childhood toy, even if none of the participants are children.
One of the great Simpson-family holiday traditions used to be (maybe still is?) a game of Spoons. That’s the one where you start out with a pile of spoons, numbering one fewer than the number of players, and a deck of cards containing the same number of “ranks” as the number of players. (Obviously this limits the game to fewer than 14 players.) You dump the spoons in the center of a (preferably carpeted) floor. Players array themselves on the floor, in a ring, roughly equidistant from the spoons. (For reasons which will become obvious, the preferred posture is kneeling, with one’s toes curled and spring-loaded for traction.)
Finally, you deal the cards.
On each turn, every player selects one card from the four in his hand and passes it, face down, to the player on his left. You all now look at the four cards you hold.
If they’re all the same rank, you quietly* grab one of the spoons from the center. As soon as that happens, every other player also grabs for a spoon. The player with no spoon is out of the game. You discard one set of four of the same rank (all four 3s or whatever), set aside a spoon, and deal again. And so on.
Obviously, the climactic encounter is the final one, when only two players remain, with a single spoon in the center. They often pass their cards verrrrry slowly, sometimes not even looking down at their hands: instead, they watch their opponent’s face, or his hand…
…because as soon as a hand twitches towards that last spoon, all traces of civilization go up the flue. Brother against brother, sister against mother-in-law or cherished nephew, it makes no difference how much the two finalists love each other, would die for each other in different circumstances. Jungle law prevails. Bring on the National Geographic camera crew, and the physicians licensed in the replacement of eyeballs, in skin grafts and bone-setting. The Last Spoon Must Be Had, even if it means gouging at one’s opponent’s fingers and peeling them back, one at a time, from the spoon handle. If the evening’s host has failed to move fragile furniture or pets well out of the way beforehand, well, what are they, stupid or something?
(Oh, and yes — bluffing is allowed. You may twitch spoonward. But if you touch a spoon, as either a bluffer or bluffee, and do NOT have a matching set of four cards, then you’re automatically out.)
How about you? Any beloved family games which sometimes result in (perhaps figurative) bloodshed — and, indeed, that’s part of the fun? And do you find, as I and apparently whaddayamean have found, that the youngest participants are sometimes the most ruthless?
And looking back on yourself as a kid, does this really — really, now — surprise you?
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* Or flamboyantly. It’s a matter of personal style (and sometimes blood-alcohol level).
Nance says
The annual USAF squadron Christmas parties, which I loathed and feared in my shyness, featured the dreaded swap game. My favorite entry was an electric seashell that my clever husband crafted; the shell gave me confidence that year. I was shocked at my aggressiveness, which ultimately only made me dread the parties more. Eventually, I learned to opt out, disappearing outside for a private chain-smoking session until the swap was over and the next embarrassing foolishness commenced.
I’m relieved to be free of mandatory gaiety at this age, 20+ years post-retirement. I quit smoking years and years ago; I couldn’t have done that until all danger of squadron parties had passed.
marta says
My in-law used to play that Dirty Santa game, but they called it a Chinese Gift Exchange. And when I first heard of it (and I had no experience with games like this at all), I said, “Chinese?!”
And so for the years this game continued (it has been defunct for a while since certain key family members have moved away), my husband and I would always bring a “Chinese” type gift–chopsticks, a book of Chinese proverbs, something faux Chinese from Pier 1. No one ever picked up on our theme, so I never got to say, “But you said Chinese!”
whaddayamean says
Ha! Thanks for the spotlight.
In my family, we have many violent gaming traditions. Most recently, it’s been Diplomacy. The bad thing about Diplomacy is it’s not all fun and games. When it’s over, everyone’s feeling a little down. Or bloodthirsty.
DarcKnyt says
Oh, SPOONS! Oh, I LOVE Spoons! That “Dirty Santa” thing SUCKS, however. I always end up initially with a cool gift and have it IMMEDIATELY stolen, and am NEVER in a position to steal it back, EVAR.
Oh, I wish we had a large family to play Spoons, though. HA! GREAT post, JES!
s.o.m.e.one's brudder says
The Volks refer to “Dirty Santa” as the “Seven-Eleven” game, and no one has yet been able to explain that name to me in a way that I remember it. I think it has to do with a feature that they added involving dice/cards or something that features those 2 sacred numbers. Lord knows that these games. must have early Christian benevolent origins, eh? I mean it’s better to give than receive (or take, right?). I think that I participated in this once when it was done – not at Christmas, as they usually did it – but at the annual Poconos Autumn Golf Outing. I think I lasted for the first three “exchanges” then did my version of Nance’s retreat by going to collect firewood.
Now spoons – that’s a whole other story! It’s known, in advance, to be a lethal event so there’s no sham “giving” involved. No dainty musical chairs crap, either. It’s give me that friggin’ spoon or I’ll tear your eye out, dammit! What could be a more American tradition. Better than Monopoly, if you ask me, for establishing best business practices. No wonder I don’t recall ever winning. Curious that I seem to remember the dear Rev. Jack was frequently in that last pairing. What does that say about benevolent Christian origins?
ReCaptcha: frookest correct? Getting more bizarre over time….
John says
These comments were highly entertaining, not least because of the variety of names (Dirty Santa, the swap game, Chinese Gift Exchange, Seven-Eleven…) for the give-get-and-lose-a-gift exchange. I wonder if anthropologists and/or sociologists have ever made a study of ritualized theft, disappointment, and revenge?
Now, specifically…
John says
Nance: ever since the whole Tailhook thing, whenever someone mentions “military parties” a little yellow flag goes up in the back of my head: Ding! It never even occurred to me that they might have complicated quitting smoking, though… the laws of unintended consequences in operation!
John says
marta: Don’t you hate it when you’ve got an elaborate gag or practical joke going on… and nobody notices? This would be especially true in the case of a game whose point is often the embarrassment of others!
John says
whaddayamean: Y’know, Diplomacy is one game I know absolutely nothing about. Well, I do now — after a foray into Wikipedia. It sounds something like Risk, no? only not… not… not turn-based?
The whole idea of playing a competitive family game in which everyone’s turns occur at once sounds like an invitation to rugby-hoodlum anarchy. The next time you’re playing it you really need to record about three minutes of it — video not necessary, just the sound — to share with the rest of us.
John says
Darc: I can see that you, too, are not averse to physical combat among people drinking from the same gene pool.
Which makes me wonder: what in the world sort of evolutionary value could there possibly be in this???
John says
brudder: The Volks do have a way of finding
excusesreasons to compete with one another!Spoons requires a killer instinct, no two ways about it. Stealth and guile will get you only so far — mostly in that last, one-on-one round. But up till then it’s a free-for-all. I can remember getting broken nails, jammed fingers and thumbs, rug burn on the knees, and during almost every game it seemed (maybe just in memory?) that someone who was having a bad day for other reasons would end up with wounded feelings too. Would’ve been fun (if intimidating) to see Dad play but I don’t think he ever did.
s.o.m.e.one's brudder says
Don’t know if it needs to be a “Simpson” blogpost item, but I’ve got a vague memory of Bud playing it at least once. Had this faux silk short sleeve pocket shirt on, kneeling on the floor @ Ann & Morris’ on Medford/Mt. Holly Rd. Or is that just a memory mash-up?