Scheduling the date
It's difficult to find a time when everyone is available to participate. Back and forth emails and texts is noisy for everyone. Create a poll for your group to choose which day and time works best to get together. Setup a few days to choose from and send it to your friends on TallyCal.
Set a Location
Where are you going to host this event. At your house? In a restaurant? At the office? Think about what else you want to spend time doing with your group besides the gift exchange. Will it be a game night? Or a friendly gathering for people to catch up with each other.
Theme
Sometimes it's fun to create a theme around the gift exchange. For example, you can make it a free for all, or guide your players to choose a gift within a category such as silly and funny gag gifts, favorite bottle of alcohol, or gift cards to a restaurant.
Establish the Rules
Make sure everyone is aware of the rules of the game beforehand. Important things to cover are budget, wrapping requirements, and guidelines for the day of. Make sure to send the rules out in advance and have them available for everyone to read on the day of the event.
Sample Rules For White Elephant Gift Exchange
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Each player brings a wrapped gift.
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When players arrive, all gifts get put on a table.
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Determine order of picking gifts by picking a number out of a hat (add a unique twist to determine player order. Maybe another game such as a ping pong tournament determines the order).
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The first player in order picks a gift.
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The next player in order picks a gift OR can steal a gift that has already been opened.
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If your gift has been stolen, you cannot steal it back that round. Instead, you select a new gift from the pile to open or steal from someone else.
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Keep going until there are no gifts left.
Sample Rules for Secret Sant Gift Exchange
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Before the event, all players' names go into a hat.
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Each player picks another name from the hat and keeps it a secret (There are apps that can be used to automate this process such as DrawNames).
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On the day of the event, all players bring their wrapped gifts with name tag of who it will be delivered to, but says from Secret Santa. All gifts get put on a table.
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Determine order of picking gifts by picking a number out of a hat (add a unique twist to determine player order. Maybe another game such as a ping pong tournament determines the order).
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As each player opens the gift, they can guess who their secret santa is.
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Keep going around until all gifts have been opened.
Incentivize great gifts
Don't let the lazy people in the group slack off on getting a great gift. Create an incentive. For example, whoever contributes a White Elephant gift that gets traded the MOST, wins a prize. Add fun twists to keep the group entertained and make it a memorable experience for years to come.