A White Elephant Gift Exchange Alternative

A White Elephant Gift Exchange is a staple at just about every Christmas parties and get togethers! Each person brings an inexpensive (or gag) gift wrapped up in pretty paper, and then people take turns selecting a gift. Some versions of the game involve opening gifts right away, and then the gifts can be stolen a certain number of times. It’s usually a ton of fun, but with large groups it can end up taking a long time, and sometimes younger kids get pretty disappointed when the gift they’ve opened is stolen from them. The LEFT RIGHT Game is a great alternative to the standard White Elephant Gift Exchange. It’s fairly quick, doesn’t involve stealing and is so much fun!

How To Play The Left Right Game For Gift Exchanges

The premise is simple: Everyone sits in a circle holding the gift they brought. Someone reads the story out loud and every time you hear the word “left” everyone passes their gift to the left. Everytime you hear “right” everyone passes their gift to the right. You may be surprised as to how many “lefts” and “rights” are mentioned, but it makes the game more fun. At the end of the story, the gift you are holding is yours to open. It’s super easy and builds anticipation for what gift they will end up with!

The only “trick” here is to make sure gifts don’t wind up back in the hands of the people who brought them. To prevent this, you might want to count the number of lefts and rights in your story to figure where the gifts are going to wind up, based on how many people are in the circle. If you’re not sure how many players you will have, you can always reserve an optional line of the story in case the gifts find their way back home. For example: “And with that, there’s nothing LEFT but to open the gift you’re holding.”

Get a copy of our Christmas Left Right Story & Game Here: