White Elephant Waste

I've been to two white elephant gift exchanges so far this Christmas season and have friends that seem to be going to one at least once a week. The rise in popularity of white elephants has also coincided with the decline in popularity of secret santas, at least in this neck of the woods.

I have to say I prefer secret santa gift exchanges more, because you can then put some thought into what the recipient might like. White elephants, on the other hand, seem to be an exercise in finding the most generic gift that would appeal to the biggest audience.

More often than not, white elephant gifts are just kitschy items that you play with for a while before it gets retired to the junk pile, and I think this just contributes to the feeding frenzy of Christmas-time consumerism.

I'm going to avoid going off on a tangent on waste and consumerism here, but if you're interested, just google it. Celebrate Discardia!

I think from now on, if I'm participating in a white elephant, I'm going to follow a couple simple rules:

• Something old: instead of buying something new, I'll try to regift instead.
• Something new: if I have to buy something new, it'll be something consumable, like a bottle of wine or a box of chocolates. Something that won't just sit on a table or end up in the garbage can or be set aside for regifting...