Oddly Zen

So, I Googled ‘dirty Santa,’ kind of scared of what I might come up with, since we are having a office game this weekend for the Xmas party…

All participants bring their gift to “the pile.” Gifts are wrapped, but are not labeled to reflect a sender or recipient. All participants draw a number (from a hat, perhaps) to determine their order. The participant with #1 unwraps any gift from the pile and then shows it to everyone. Each successive participant, in the order determined from the drawing, can either 1) “steal” an already opened gift (if there’s one they really like) or 2) be adventurous and go for a wrapped gift from the pile. If the participant chooses to steal, the person whose gift is stolen now repeats their turn and either 1) steals another person’s gift or 2) unwraps a new gift. This cycle of stealing can sometimes continue for a long time, until a new gift is chosen, at which point the turn is passed to the participant with the next number from the drawing. (An alternative to the drawing is to sit in a circle and take turns in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction.)

Since items can be stolen, the item in your possession is not yours until the game is over (i.e. a food item cannot be eaten until the game is over). As an optional but recommended rule, a gift is considered “dead” (cannot be stolen again) after it has been stolen three times. This limits the amount of stealing to a controllable amount.