White Elephant

Game

‘Twas the night before Christmas in a young family household. We were invited to a nice house party from a friend of my mother. It was the first social gathering we had been invited to in New Waverly. Surprisingly there were s lot of kids my age, many I had seen in church or from playing basketball. The party really got started with the introduction of the White Elephant game.

I had never heard of this misleading game until that night. At first, in my head I was oddly thinking, "Okay where's this animal at". My mom seemed to instinctively move with the beat and hand our present over to the middle table as all the other people followed. All I could do was watch, frozen with confusion as kids took turns picking from the pile of presents. All of a sudden, one kid points to a gift in another kid's hands. And then that kid willingly and with a smile handed it over! You can not comprehend my level of confusion at this point. I just witnessed a fellow Pokemon trainer hand over a beautiful, jumbo pack Pokemon cards to a kid who simply gestured at it. 

I turned to my mom for an explanation. She understood right away why I was questioning whether this was a dream or not- to be dramatic. She quietly demystified White Elephant for me. As soon as the concept registered I felt a revival of consciousness, only comparable to finally understanding a complex math concept. Quickly i rejoined the inner circle of kids awaiting their turn. There was the classic Pokemon Red game for the Game-boy Color still in circulation with only one steal left on it. I was definitely eyeballing it, after all what more is there to life than catching them all. I strategically positioned myself behind the kid who had an intense fascination with Legos, knowing he would steal a Lego set. It was my turn and no hesitation was made in stealing that game. No remorse, I was a ruthless kid. White Elephant was a game of planning and luck, only the chosen would come out with a quality gift. Flash forward to last year I won a $15 iTunes gift card, White Elephant is good to me and on that fateful night I found my favorite Christmas game.