White or Grey Elephant

January 5th, 2025 (29 days ago) • 3 minutes

I tried out White Elephant gift exchange for the first time this year. It's a little delayed because G was busy - so he extended it to today.

M fetched us to the house in sunset district and along the way, I noticed the big difference between downtown and here. There's so much more space and the sky is not blocked by tall buildings. It's a nice change of scenery. It's not as congested and the air feels fresher.

We arrived about 5pm and there were already a few people there. Everyone was supposed to bring a gift each as well as some food to be shared.

There were so much food on the table and I felt so full from eating.

I really like the Chanko Nabe soup made with pork slices and cabbage. I want to learn how to make it. And also the manggo dessert. I had 2 servings of that.

Later on, we started the gift exchange. We played a different version of it where we can steal gifts from each other. Every round, you can either play a card or discard a card. The playable card are actions like steal, swap, or open a new gift.

new card from the game

The first round I ended up with my own gift HAHA! Then the second round came, I swapped my gift with another person and got the chance to open a gift in the middle - it was an anker charger. Third round came, a popmart appeared and I managed to swapped my anker charger with theirs - I got a pop mart! (not a Labubu because it's so expensive and I still can't justify why people spend that much on a toy)

the little prince popmart

Between the game, we let the youngest 2¹ year old Damien pick a gift and pass it to the person who's turn it is. He also made sure that everyone is clean by collecting the wrapping paper and throwing it away. He did this for everyone - it was so cute.

The game lasted about 45 minutes and we headed home around 9pm. It was a fun night and I hope I can get to know them better in the future.

¹ Random fact that I learned: Baby under 1 year old has a lot of dietry restrictions. They can't have honey, nuts, and eggs etc. I didn't know that. I thought they can eat anything as long as it's not solid food.