White Elephant Gift Swap

It's become a tradition that in lieu of gifts for everyone, we adults swap white elephant gifts for Christmas. So after church on Sunday, we ordered pizzas and did our goofy gift exchange game until lunch arrived.

Each of our gifts were piled up in the center of the living room.

A rare photo of Gary and me -- less than 10 weeks now until Greta's due date!

Grayson watched everyone open their numbers, deciding the order of choosing white elephant prizes.

Melissa opened a "Gandolf" hand-carved walking stick from Dad. Dave opened this holographic photo of twin babies, surrounded by glitter and cartoon creatures, purchased in Vietnam by Tony on their recent travels.

Mom opened a giant, pumpkin orange knit blanket from Jen. Joey opened hand-made pottery, made and gifted by Mom (she made them during her summer class in northern MN last August). I chose Dave's gift, which was cleverly wrapped in duct tape.

It took some time to open. Gordy was anxious to see what was under all that tape.

It's a fuzzy, souvenir jack-a-lope!

...And an opalescent ash tray from the lovely state of Wyoming. There's Mom in the background - the only photo I happened to snap with her in it for this event.

Gary opened my gift, which was a "stay home vacation kit," including a Global Adventure DVD and a CD of Hawaiian music.

Tony opened the gift from Joey, which was a parrot statue and a Dr. Atkin's Diet book. Jen opened Josh's gift, which was a pliers and two gently used DVDs.

Dad opened Gary's gift - a cute little garden gnome.

And Josh chose Melissa's gift - a gigantic universal TV remote control and a gently used DVD of the move, "The Other Guys."

I think all of these gifts traded hands during the swapping part of the game. Gary went after and ended up with the Gandolf walking stick from Dad, which he'll use on his mountain hikes near our cabins. The little garden gnome was my final choice. Everyone seemed to end up with something they had their eye on or could maybe use somehow. It was fun, as always.

Right on time, as we were finishing up the white elephant swap, our pizza arrived.

Melissa helped hand out our lunch slices.

And the boys enjoyed a little living room picnic beneath the pizza table.