Trying to mash together White Elephant and Trivia
December 8, 2022 12:37 PM Subscribe
As a part of our office end of year party, we'll be doing a White Elephant gift exchange (also known as Yankee Swap and Bad/Dirty Santa). Originally we were going to do White Elephant and a Trivia/Pub quiz type game separately, but we've decided to try and smoosh them together and it would be great to crowd source ideas on how to do this well.
The best suggestion I have found is requiring a person to answer a trivia question correctly before they can steal a gift, and if they get it wrong, the person they are trying to steal off can answer. If they get it right, their gift can't be stolen for the next turn. But this only seems to work for the stealing part, and not the initial part where gifts are becoming part of the rotation. There's going to be 15-20 of us, so it's already going to take a while. Does anyone have any better ideas, or variations of this that have worked for them?
There are two of us organising the end of year shindig; we work for a non-US Government department so funding is tight and we'd rather not spend our own money on prizes (especially as we're the lowest paid people in the office) so we've figured if we can have the two activities work as one it means we don't have to supply anything to the winners. Also, we want to offer people the chance to relax as much as possible so one (slightly chaotic) activity seems better than two.
(As an aside, I know that end of year work parties, gift exchanges and 'forced fun' is not everyone's idea of a good time, and that's fine! Please know that every single second of the office party is completely voluntary including even showing up in the first place--it's an optional paid lunch during work hours--and there are absolutely no repercussions to not taking part in activities. Those who aren't into it are welcome to chat or heckle from the side-lines as they sip their beverages in the sunshine.)
The best suggestion I have found is requiring a person to answer a trivia question correctly before they can steal a gift, and if they get it wrong, the person they are trying to steal off can answer. If they get it right, their gift can't be stolen for the next turn. But this only seems to work for the stealing part, and not the initial part where gifts are becoming part of the rotation. There's going to be 15-20 of us, so it's already going to take a while. Does anyone have any better ideas, or variations of this that have worked for them?
There are two of us organising the end of year shindig; we work for a non-US Government department so funding is tight and we'd rather not spend our own money on prizes (especially as we're the lowest paid people in the office) so we've figured if we can have the two activities work as one it means we don't have to supply anything to the winners. Also, we want to offer people the chance to relax as much as possible so one (slightly chaotic) activity seems better than two.
(As an aside, I know that end of year work parties, gift exchanges and 'forced fun' is not everyone's idea of a good time, and that's fine! Please know that every single second of the office party is completely voluntary including even showing up in the first place--it's an optional paid lunch during work hours--and there are absolutely no repercussions to not taking part in activities. Those who aren't into it are welcome to chat or heckle from the side-lines as they sip their beverages in the sunshine.)
All participants in the trivia bring the white elephant gift, unwrapped. Winner of the trivia gets first present pic. Second gets second, etc
posted by Jacen at 1:22 PM on December 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Jacen at 1:22 PM on December 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
Agree with Jacen. Trivia to determine order of picking!
posted by Ftsqg at 1:27 PM on December 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Ftsqg at 1:27 PM on December 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
I think the keep it simple suggestion is probably correct.
But the chaos elf in me wants you to make every third trivia question something impossibly specific and obscure in a certain domain, for example rock chart history: "What Billboard Top 40 chart position did Sister Sledge's 1979 single He's the Greatest Dancer peak at?".
And then you wrap and put into the white elephant gift exchange a copy of The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits.
posted by Superilla at 11:18 PM on December 8, 2022
But the chaos elf in me wants you to make every third trivia question something impossibly specific and obscure in a certain domain, for example rock chart history: "What Billboard Top 40 chart position did Sister Sledge's 1979 single He's the Greatest Dancer peak at?".
And then you wrap and put into the white elephant gift exchange a copy of The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits.
posted by Superilla at 11:18 PM on December 8, 2022
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If you trust your group then a trivia question to steal with no additional rule changes actually sounds pretty good. Maybe let non-swappers read the questions?
As another approach, you could do a normal white elephant swap for the people who want to bring gifts and have a side game of making bets about what will happen for the non-participants (bragging rights as prizes). Some things to guess could include
- Guess what will be stolen the most times before anything is opened
- Guess who will end up with each gift as its opened
- Before the last person takes a gift, guess which one they'll take
posted by martinX's bellbottoms at 1:06 PM on December 8, 2022